The second former tax advisor to be sentenced in the £70m fraud at Vantis that left charities and the Exchequer out of pocket, has received a four year jail term.

Roy Faichney, managing director of Vantis Tax was said to have had a 'gentleman's agreement' with his deputy, David Perrin - who was jailed in January for his part in the fraud - to share the £4.5m profit of a fraudulent tax avoidance scheme sold to wealthy customers.

Acting together they extracted the cash they made through a Jersey bank, where Faichney withdrew his share to spend on luxury properties and paintings, while also using the scheme to evade tax on his £200,000-plus company salary.

Faichney, along with Perrin, used a network of finance professionals to advise more than 600 wealthy clients to buy shares, worth a few pence each, in four new companies they had set up. He then listed the companies on the Channel Islands Stock Exchange and paid people money from an offshore account to buy and sell the shares simply to inflate their price.

Sentencing Faichney, his honour Judge Blacksell QC, at Blackfriars Crown Court, said: 'If you ever had a moral compass you lost it or buried it under the property purchases, furnishings, holidays and cruises.

'The general public are sick and tired of men such as you and schemes such as this. This is high net worth fiddling. The general public should applaud the dedication and commitment shown by HMRC in pursuing all aspects of this case. They have been well served.'

In addition to the four year custodial term Faichney was disqualified from acting as a director for the next 10 years.

Jenny Crutchfield, of HMRC Criminal Investigations, said: 'Faichney thought he could attack and defraud the tax system by using his knowledge as a tax adviser. Together with Perrin, not only did he attempt to cheat taxpayers out of millions of pounds, but callously abused a tax relief designed to benefit charities by arranging the gifting of 329 million virtually worthless shares.'

Perrin's 18 month prison sentence was referred to the Court of Appeal and was found to have been unduly lenient but, due to his health, did not alter the original sentence.