Ex-Opera House horn player stole £185,000 in royalties for home revamp

Richard Clews
John Dunne @jhdunne14 November 2019
WEST END FINAL

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A former horn player at the Royal Opera House who plundered musicians’ royalties to fund his house renovation has been jailed.

Richard Clews, 53, pocketed £185,000 while working for PRS for Music, which collects royalties for top stars including Ed Sheeran, The Rolling Stones and U2, as well as many successful classical acts.

Clews worked at the company for more than six years as a classical music researcher, whose job it was to log royalties due and mark musicians down for payment.

Yesterday Wood Green crown court heard how on 330 occasions he entered false claims on the company computer under the name of his wife, a musical arranger, and put the money in her bank account.

Clews stole £185,662, but his wife knew nothing of his deception, the jury was told.

He used the money to pay for renovations on his home after his illustrious career playing the horn for the Royal Opera House and the London Symphony Orchestra crashed when health problems impaired his musical ability, the court heard.

He had been making £80,000 a year as a French horn player at the height of his career, but his salary dropped to £27,000 at PRS, it was said. More recently he had been a lifeguard.

Prosecutor Nicholas Cribb said: “[Clews] cherry-picked royalties from successful artists. The defendant was using his wife’s bank account for the transactions. The activity was over a sustained period of time.”

Clews’s barrister Oliver Blunt QC said the father of three had a previously unblemished character. “Mr Clews wants to express his deep remorse,” he said. “He was hitherto of impeccable character.”

At a previous hearing, Clews, who lives in Dollis Hill, north-west London, pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud by abuse of position between November 2012 and February 2019.

Yesterday Judge Andrew Holmes jailed him for 28 months, saying: “This was a clear abuse of trust and it seems to me it was sophisticated. The offence only came to an end when you were detected. To your credit you repaid the full cost.”

PRS for Music represents the rights of more than 140,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in the UK and two million worldwide It collected a record £746 million on behalf of its members last year.

A spokesman said: “We are pleased that our internal assurance processes identified this issue and we acted quickly to address it. We pushed for a full prosecution and are delighted with the successful result. PRS for Music will always act in the interests of its members and funds have already been received and returned.”

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