Michael Wilson is accused of scamming thousands of people who he told were investing in wine

A solicitor conned members of the public into investing more than £200,000 in expensive bottles of fine wine that did not exist, a court heard today.

Michael Wilson, 44, is accused of duping at least ten people into ploughing thousands of pounds of their savings into his firm Global Wine Investments Ltd before his arrest.

One victim paid nearly £20,000 for two cases of Chateau Lafite 2008 only to find staff become ‘evasive and difficult to contact’ when he tried to sell them off, prosecutors said.

In total Wilson’s business only spent £64,000 on wine while £93,000 was withdrawn in cash and £130,000 was paid to Wilson and his employees,the court heard.

Prosecutor Julian Jones said: ‘The total amount lost was over £200,000. Where did the money go? The answer is that Michael Wilson spent much of it himself.

‘He was criminally involved in a fraud in which members of the public were encouraged to spend large amounts of money supposedly investing in fine wines.

‘In most cases they did not receive any wine at all. Instead they lost their money.’

Wilson allegedly ran the scam between April 2011 and September 2012 from offices in St Mary Axe in the City of London, with views looking out on to The Gherkin.

He was the sole signatory on the bank account and a director of GWI until April 2012 when he started using the alias James Hamilton, the court heard.

Victim David Scholey contacted the firm in October 2011 after seeing a newspaper advert.

He decided to invest £19,600 on two cases of Chateau Lafite 2008 after receiving a ‘very professional’ brochure and speaking to a member of staff using the name Charlie Cox.

Mr Scholey was persuaded to invest another £17,000 the following month but became suspicious after asking to sell the original two cases.

He finally managed to get GWI to give him some wine but was only able to sell it for £25,245, a loss of £11,355, jurors heard.

Other victims never received any wine at all despite investing thousands of pounds, the court heard.

Victim Philip Tomkinson invested £42,500 but only received one case of wine worth £8,500.

His firm told clients they were investing in Chateau Lafite (like that pictured in file photo), the court heard

Mr Tomkinson was so disgruntled he obtained a court winding up order, jurors heard.

The bank account for GWI revealed £631,261 in credits between July 2011 and September 2012 but only £64,016 was spent on wine and £100,000 on business costs.

Another £21,089 went on ‘lifestyle payments’, £93,000 was withdrawn in cash and £150,000 was paid to individuals including Wilson and his staff.

Wilson refused to answer questions in a police interview but said in a statement that he was only a nominee director and was not in charge of the day to day running of the business.

Wilson, of Leyton, east London, denies fraud and possession of criminal property. The trial continues.