This is Staffordshire --WRESTLER Ghent Wakefield has been jailed for his part in a £1.5 million VAT fraud.
The former stripper was sentenced to 17 months imprisonment after he admitted conspiring to cheat the revenue at Manchester Crown Court.
Wakefield, who was once offered a contract by the WWE wrestling federation in America, allowed Army veteran Paul Hackney to use a company he had set up to carry out the fraud.
The 32-year-old 'henchman', of Federation Road, Burslem, was rewarded with a holiday in Australia and two helicopter trips.
Hackney, aged 36, from Salford, was jailed for six years after admitting to cheating the revenue.
The scam exploited European Union trade laws that allow VAT to be refunded.
Hackney used a string of companies to claim refunds for sales of construction equipment which had never taken place.
Wakefield's company, Equinox Manufacturing, was used in a failed bid to make a fraudulent VAT reclaim for £45,000.
Nicholas Tatlow, defending, said Wakefield, had derived limited benefit from the fraud, and had been 'vulnerable' when he became involved back in 2007.
Mr Tatlow said: "It's plain that this defendant was used and manipulated by a particularly sophisticated and intelligent criminal, Paul Hackney.
"He's a man who was plainly anxious to please and a man who was all too easily impressed by Hackney's show of wealth and sophistication."
Wakefield also worked as a chauffeur for law student Hackney, driving him to lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University in a Rolls Royce Phantom.
Judge Martin Steiger QC said while he accepted that Wakefield played a much lesser role in the scam, he must have known what Hackney was doing.
He said: "Wakefield was Hackney's driver and henchman when Hackney was ironically studying for a law degree.
"Furthermore, this defendant received treats quite apart from what he was paid by Hackney – he went on a lavish trip to Australia and two ostentatious trips by helicopter.
"He must have known all this profusion of money squandered on luxuries was coming from crime."
Wakefield was jailed two weeks ago after he entered his guilty plea, but the case was subject to reporting restrictions until Hackney appeared before the same court this week. Wakefield took up wrestling in 2009 and joined the Stoke-on-Trent-based British Wrestling Alliance run by Fenton grappler Chris Curtis and starred in shows across Europe.
The wrestler later impressed WWE scouts and he was offered a training contract in 2011 subject to a physical test.
But he suffered an unfortunate injury at a show in Skegness that same year and ruptured both biceps, which ended his dreams of stardom.
Prior to that Wakefield had appeared at a tournament in Tunstall Park which had featured the world famous masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki. Reported by This is 5 hours ago.