A career conman who defrauded money after becoming the chief commercial officer of a Norfolk company has been jailed for eight years.

Simon Squires, 49, of Highfields, Caldecote, Cambridgeshire, fraudulently gained employment as chief commercial officer at a Thetford company which sells personal care products, in order to defraud victims of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He took the money by using his position to reward himself financially while causing substantial losses to the business.

Squires went by several other names such as Simon Ball and Simon Brown in an attempt to evade the law.

He was first jailed in 2013 and again in 2017 for defrauding his victims out of their money.

Upon his release from jail, Squires continued offending.

Between 2018 and 2020 he used a CV containing falsified and untrue information to obtain two senior jobs at two different companies, one at the Norfolk company and another at a technology company in Oxford, changing his name by deed poll so employers wouldn’t uncover his previous criminal record.

An investigation was launched by Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Squires was arrested and charged with fraud offences, before being released on bail.

Following the arrest he continued to defraud people under the alias of Matthew Ball.

In total he claimed around £110,000 from the companies.

In February 2022 he was arrested by officers from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) and pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud by false representation, four counts of money laundering, and 10 breaches of a serious crime prevention order, which he received following his 2017 conviction.

He was jailed for eight years and nine months at Cambridge Crown Court on Monday, May 30, and a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) investigation has now been launched, to ensure that Squires does not profit from his actions.

While passing the sentence, the judge described Squires as: "A serious danger to honest business people.”

Around £30,000 in his bank account has been frozen and a number of watches believed to be worth more than £100,000 have been seized, while financial investigations take place.