Bucklebury royal wedding guest admits fraud

Bucklebury store owner Hash Shingadia, a guest at the royal wedding, has admitted a charge of fraud

A BUCKLEBURY shopkeeper who was a guest of the Middleton family at the royal wedding has admitted fraud.

Hasmukh Shingadia, aged 51, who runs Peaches convenience store in Upper Bucklebury, claimed that the amount of cash-in-hand money held at a Post Office branch inside his shop was greater than the true figure.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of false accounting between December 2008 and March 2010 at Oxford Crown Court today (Friday).

In the run-up to the royal wedding on April 29, Mr Shingadia, known as “Hash” told the Newbury Weekly News that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and her family were regular visitors to his store and had become friends of his family, and that he and his wife Chan Shingadia were overwhelmed to be invited.

Speaking after the wedding he said: “It was absolutely wonderful; from the moment we started to the moment it all finished."

Weeks later it emerged that the Post Office was bringing a case against the store owner.

Nigel Daly, defending, told the court hearing today that at the time of the fraud his client was suffering a cashflow problem with the non-Post Office side of his business, and had always intended to pay back any gains made through his scheme.

The judge, Mr Justice Saunders, said Mr Shingadia was “taking money from the Post Office bills to meet bills on the other side”.

Mr Shingadia pleaded not guilty to one count of theft of £16,180.60 and the prosecution will ask for this to lie on the file.

The judge granted him bail until a sentencing hearing on July 21.

“I am giving you no indication of what the likely sentence will be in relation to this,” he said, adding that Shingadia was “a man of previous good character”.