By Adam Everett,Helena Vesty

Copyright manchestereveningnews

A dad who posed as an honest businessman was actually fronting a dodgy debt collection agency on behalf of an organised crime group. Stephen Cavanagh acted as the director of IDRE Ltd, which regularly conned its customers by recovering sums which were owed to clients. Sometimes those amounts were hundreds of thousands of pounds, but he failed to ever pay the money onwards. Never miss a story with the MEN’s daily Catch Up newsletter – get it in your inbox by signing up here The 45-year-old claims to have become entangled in the operation after racking up a £20,000 drug debt, reports the Echo . The “wholly dishonest entity and highly sophisticated enterprise” even used its own call centre to identify “vulnerable” targets through cold calling. Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday, Wednesday, that Cavanagh, of Blue Bell Lane in Huyton, was named as the director of IDRE Ltd between February 7 2020 and July 26, 2022. But, having been given the job by other companies to get back the sums owed to them, the firm failed to pass on the proceeds once these monies had been paid up. James Rae, prosecuting, described how one business in Scotland, Tam Shilliday Plant Hire and Groundworks Ltd, was cold called by IDRE Ltd and persuaded to pay up £31,000 for the recovery of a £134,918.83 debt that was owed to it by Corryard Development Ltd. While £212,224 was subsequently collected from the latter business, these funds were never passed on to the creditors. Tam Shilliday was told on one occasion that it would receive the sum within four days of its final commission payment. However, its owners were instead told that IDRE Ltd’s director was “in hospital and couldn’t authorise” the payment. Another complainant, UK Double Glazing Repairs Ltd, tasked the company in question to recover a debt of £10,948.40 from Crestel Projects Ltd in return for a £1,100 fee. But, having accepted a lower settlement of £6,151.60 via a representative of IDRE Ltd, these monies were never received. The double glazing firm’s director, Sarah MacPherson, even “took to social media and sent letters to local councillors” in a bid to recover her cash. Join our Court and Crime WhatsApp group HERE This led to her being contacted by Tret Corp Ltd, a separate business which had a different director and bank accounts, with the caller “asking if she would withdraw her complaints in return for monthly payments of £1,000”. While the first of these amounts was received, “nothing more was forthcoming”. A total of 19 complaints have been submitted to Action Fraud in relation to IDRE Ltd and Tret Corp, with 10 victims having provided witness statements. Mr Rae told the court that a calculated sum of £109,300.83 was “the very least of the defendant’s gains from his criminality”. He added: “The reality is that IDRE Ltd was a wholly dishonest entity and a highly sophisticated enterprise which involved the defendant recruiting others to make cold calls on his behalf.” Cavanagh now says that he accrued a drug debt “in excess of £20,000” and “agreed to work off the debt as the director of a company set up by an organised crime group”. This also saw him “set up a number of bank accounts so as to receive the victims’ fees, as well as a personal account he had used for his own financial gain”. Mr Rae continued: “The defendant was solely responsible for setting up this wholly fraudulent company and its bank accounts. “The business model sought to prey upon victims who were all people or businesses that had already suffered a financial loss and, in some cases, this has deprived them of any prospect of recovery.” Cavanagh has no previous convictions. Nicola Daley, defending, said on his behalf: “It is accepted that this is serious offending that clearly crosses the custodial threshold. “The defendant fully acknowledges that. He accepts that he set the company up and also opened the bank accounts, but it is not accepted that it was his fraudulent business model. “He was aware that this was the purpose of setting up that company. “He was aware, because of the individuals that he was asked to do it for, of the fact that this was dishonest in its nature, but it was not his business model. He did not know the full extent of the monies that were going through it. “He does accept that he was aware of the general nature of what was occurring and that, without him, this company would not have been running. “He does not accept that he was ever working at any call centre. He did not employ those individuals to make those representations. “The defendant has addressed what his life was at the time, which had led not only to offending but also to his ex-partner ending their relationship and preventing him from having any contact, at that stage, with his daughter. “He has changed, and he is now somebody that has contact with his daughter. “He has now, I would submit, turned his life around. He has shown, in the three years since the indictment period, that he can lead a law-abiding life. In fact, those three years have not been the easiest. “He has been diagnosed, since that time, with multiple sclerosis.” Cavanagh admitted one count of fraudulent trading. He was jailed for 32 months and banned from acting as a company director for a period of 10 years. Sentencing, Recorder Gavin McBride said: “You were part of a fraudulent operation, cold calling people who were financially vulnerable during the covid period, when people were particularly vulnerable. You opened the bank accounts which facilitated that to happen, and specific sums have been identified at £109,300. “The crown contends that the operation may well have benefited in greater sums. You describe how you were effectively working to pay off a drug debt, that you had agreed, under pressure, to be a director of this company, and that you set up the bank accounts, including a bank account for your own personal gain. “Your role was self-inflicted. The drug debt that you had brought you to that position, and this is what you did. Without those bank accounts, there would not have been that operation. Although I accept that you may not have been aware of the extent of the activity, clearly, given the number of bank accounts and the length of time of the activity, you would have had a good idea. “You were a man of good character before this, and there is nothing since. That is a tragedy for you and your family. I note your health issues and diagnosis with MS. It is clear to me that you have made progress after these events, for the better.”