Son of Viscount robbed Tesco to fund festival
A kind yet obsessed aristocrat that stretched Tesco’s “Every little helps” catchphrase to its very limits, by cheating it out of £355,000, has received a 30 month prison sentence.
Alexander Trenchard, who is son of Viscount Trenchard, used to be the director of a music festival, namely Standon Calling, which has, over the years, boasted top acts like Florence and the Machine and Mumford & Sons. It has been held on the grounds of the convicted defendant’s parents’ 16th-century mansion.
Trenchard was taken on by the UK’s largest supermarket in 2002 on a graduate trainee contract and was rapidly promoted to a £70,000-a-year corporate affairs manager post that allowed him a company credit card.
As he was struggling to pay bills for the festival, having already used all of his own cash to pay off debts that were a result of the 2007 leg of the event, he started using the card as drew cash to clear money owed. Over a period of 21 months he drew out a total of £196,000 in cash, with the total debt that Tesco were hit with ending up at £355,000.
The aristocrat, aged 32-year-old admitted to one charge of theft as well as another of fraud through misrepresentation. While jailing Trenchard. Judge Tyler, who was sitting at Crown Court in Aylesbury, branded the offences a grave breach of the trust put in him – adding that the crimes went on for what was a significant period of time.