THE Sandwich-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was swindled out of almost £½million by two men who siphoned off cash in a ‘bold and audacious’ fraud, a court was told.

Fraudster Nimish Bhatt, has been jailed for four years after being convicted of conspiring to create false invoices for the supply of consultancy services and computer hardware.

The jury at Canterbury Crown Court heard the complex story of how Bhatt and Pfizer employee Kelvin Rowe lined their own pockets at Pfizer’s expense using false invoices submitted by Bhatt and approved by Dr Rowe, a former service manager.

Jailing Bhatt, 38, of Birch Drive, Bradwell Village, Oxfordshire, Judge Adele Williams said: “The fraud was conceived in arrogance and greed. Arrogance because you believed yourselves to be such masters of information technology you could fool everybody and greed because you saw large amounts of money being made around you and saw no reason not to have a dishonest share.”

The accused used a complex and sophisticated method involving four different types of invoices to cover their tracks and one company was set up specifically as a vehicle for fraud said Judge Williams. It was exacerbated by Dr Rowe abusing his considerable position of trust at Pfizer.

Dr Rowe, 42, of Church Barn Farm, Foxborough Hill, Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, was in a different position to Bhatt. Another jury had earlier found that he was unfit to stand trial and the current jury had to determine whether he did the acts the Crown alleged.

Judge Williams said she had read a large body of medical opinion suggesting he had shut down his mind and to some extent his body because of what happened.

As well as the conspiracy charge which netted the accused a total of £474,218, Dr Rowe faced 11 other charges of forgery and false accounting involving a further £23,500 and relating to misuse of a company American Express card.

After the jury found that he had committed the acts, sentence was adjourned pending medical reports.

The offences ran between 1995 and 1999 when Dr Rowe worked in the company’s regional planning department.