SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said: 

"Alan Robert Hush, Gavin Gerard Cox, Adam Paul Sharoudi and Gavin John Brown, on 29 April 2025 at Glasgow High Court you were all convicted by a jury after a 65 day trial in respect of charges under the Bribery Act 2010 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and you, Mr Hush and Mr Sharoudi, were additionally convicted of charges of fraud.

You, Mr Hush and Mr Cox, were NHS health board managers and you, Mr Sharoudi and Mr Brown, were directors of an Ayrshire company called Oricom Limited.  Between 2010 and 2017 you collectively engaged, albeit to varying degrees and over the varying periods libelled, in a targeted campaign of bribery and, in your case Mr Hush and Mr Sharoudi, fraud.

The Crown case accepted by the jury was in large part directed of course to the process whereby certain public contracts were awarded and to the corrupt relationships which lay at the heart of that process. Such is the corrosive effect of corruption upon commercial and public life, and upon public confidence in these areas of our civic society, that individuals such as yourselves who readily engage in it should expect to be treated robustly by the court.  The sentencing objectives in the exercise before the court this morning can therefore be stated plainly: punishment and deterrence. The public are entitled to expect that their fellow citizens will not seek to subvert public officials in the diligent exercise of their duties, and public officials in their turn should know that succumbing to bribery will result in the handing down by the court of immediate and significant custodial terms.  The reach and character of the corruption and in particular the corrupt relationships engaged in by all of you, when considered as a whole, was on a grand scale.

In reaching its verdicts in this case, the jury in terms rejected your denials of responsibility for the crimes now established against you, denials which, it would appear, you in large part continue to maintain, as of course is your right. In the light of those jury verdicts where convictions were made out, however, the evidence given by each one of you during the trial can in my view be accurately described as self-serving, arrogant and mendacious.  The court will, of course, today proceed to impose sentence upon each one of you only upon the basis of the verdicts reached after careful consideration by a highly diligent jury.

Mr Hush, you are now aged 68.  You have no previous convictions.  You have been convicted of the following charges: one charge under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889 section 1(1); two charges under the Bribery Act 2010 section 2(2); one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 section 329(1); one charge of theft; and four charges of fraud.  You initially took bribes in the form of hotel accommodation, food and drink, train tickets, a laptop, an iPad and cash.  In return you caused NHS Lothian Health Board to award procurements to Oricom for the supply, installation and maintenance of equipment and services valued in total in the sum of £1,590,786.74.  You additionally participated in a concerted fraud against NHS Lothian, causing a procurement to be made and payment of £160,089.60 to be paid to Oricom.  You also thereafter took bribes in the form of hotel accommodation and train tickets, and in return caused NHS Grampian Health Board to award procurements valued at £88,573.86 to Oricom.  You participated in another concerted fraud, this time in respect of NHS Grampian, causing the Board to pay £3,000 to Oricom.  You further stole a telephone and procured telephones for persons, including your relatives, who were not entitled to them.  The bribes received by you amounted to £18,231.02, which is the criminal property value set out in the Proceeds of Crime Act charge libelled against you.

I have listened carefully to what has been said on your behalf in mitigation by your senior counsel, and note in particular the submissions advanced in respect of your first offender status, your personal, family and historically constructive employment background, your specific health issues and age, together with the matters raised by your senior counsel regarding the limited extent of your enrichment, the lack of evidence led such as would tend to show that any of the works done were unnecessary or below standard and that the corrupt relationship found established by the jury was largely carried out in plain sight and was of, as your senior counsel put matters, a discount and low budget nature.

Mr Cox, you are now aged 60.  You too have no previous convictions.  You have been convicted of the following charges: one charge under the Bribery Act 2010 section 2(2); and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 section 329(1).  You took bribes in the form of an iPad, holiday vouchers and cash with a total value of £73,149.17, which is the criminal property value set out in the Proceeds of Crime Act charge libelled against you.  In return you caused NHS Lanarkshire Health Board to award procurements for the supply, installation and maintenance of equipment valued at £3,103,167.67 to Oricom.  You repeatedly provided commercially sensitive information to and gave a competitive advantage to Oricom.  The holiday vouchers enabled you and your family to take international holidays, and the large sums of cash received by you allowed you to buy a car and even to fund the building of an extension to your house.

I have listened carefully this morning to what has been said on your behalf in mitigation by your leading counsel, and note in particular the submissions advanced in respect of your own first offender status, your personal, family and historically positive and very lengthy employment background, in particular your supportive family, together with the specific matters addressed by your counsel regarding your expressed shame in respect of the jury’s finding of guilt against you, the lack of harm to the NHS made out on the evidence regarding the contracts actually awarded through your established corruption, and your significant past health issues.

Mr Sharoudi, you are now aged 41.  You too have no previous convictions.  You have been convicted of the following charges: one charge under the Public Bodies and Corrupt Practices Act 1889 section 1(2); three charges under the Bribery Act 2010 section 1(2); one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 section 329(1); and two charges of fraud. You bribed Mr Hush in return for the award of procurements from NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian, all as already described earlier in these remarks.  You participated with him in the two concerted frauds against those health boards also already referred to.  You additionally participated with Mr Brown in giving bribes to a now deceased individual in consequence of which that person, then a telecommunications manager at NHS Lanarkshire Health Board, caused NHS Lanarkshire to award procurements to Oricom valued at £694,389.60.  These bribes comprised cash payments and the payment of car rental costs, all totalling £30,095.34.  One such cash payment, of £21,100, was made to facilitate the purchase of a new car.

I have listened carefully this morning to what has been said on your behalf in mitigation by your senior counsel, and note in particular the submissions advanced in respect of your first offender status, your challenging upbringing and adverse childhood experiences, your present settled personal, family, and previous employment circumstances, your first class university degree, the testimony expressed in the very extensive bundle of character references which has been submitted on your behalf, together with what has been said by your senior counsel regarding the lack of evidence led to the effect that the NHS could have obtained the goods and services awarded in respect of your corruption for less, the important matter of the longevity of the present proceedings and the investigations which pre-dated these, the lack of breach of trust involved in this case on your own part due to your lack of connection to the NHS, and your minimal risk of any reoffending.

Mr Brown, you are now aged 48. You also have no previous convictions.  You have been convicted of the following charges: one charge under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889 section 1(2); four charges under the Bribery Act 2010 section 1(2); and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 section 329(1).  You participated with Mr Sharoudi in the bribing of the now deceased NHS Lanarkshire telecoms manager, as already described.  You additionally bribed Mr Cox, also as already described.  You further bribed a Crown witness who was a senior manager at NHS Lanarkshire Health Board and at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board by way of a gift card and voucher for hotel accommodation, valued at £4,500, albeit that neither Oricom nor yourself received anything material in return for that bribery.  Finally, you bribed a further Crown witness who was a telecommunications coordinator at NHS Ayrshire and Arran Health Board, providing her with mobile telephones, hotel accommodation, tickets to racing events and associated hospitality with a total cumulo value of £2,612, in return for the provision of commercially sensitive information and the award of procurements by NHS Ayrshire and Arran to Oricom in the sum of £39,449.77.

For completeness, the criminal property value set out in the Proceeds of Crime charge libelled jointly against you, Mr Brown and Mr Sharoudi, is in the sum of £5,719,244.02.

I have listened carefully this morning to what has been said on your behalf, Mr Brown, in mitigation by your senior counsel, and note in particular what has been submitted regarding your first offender status, your personal, family and employment circumstances, the positive history of Oricom, the extensive character reference material which has been submitted on your behalf, and in addition the specific matters referred to by your senior counsel regarding the longevity of proceedings, the lack of established loss to the NHS, your minimal risk and your ongoing and very real concerns for your family and employees.

Turning now to disposal, I have already made crystal clear that, standing the gravity of your offending in this case, the only appropriate sentence for each of you requires to be a substantial custodial one.  The guideline on the Bribery Act 2010 issued by the Sentencing Council in England offers some useful albeit of course non-binding parameters regarding culpability and harm, which I now propose to consider in the context of the crimes presently before the court.

Mr Sharoudi and Mr Brown, you each had a leading role in this campaign of corruption.  Your offending was committed over a sustained period of time.  You targeted NHS officers and were plainly motivated by the expectation of substantial commercial gain. I consider your culpability to be high.  Mr Hush and Mr Cox, you willingly participated in what was asked of you and you appeared to grow to become very comfortable in the regular taking by you of bribes.  You were NHS managers, public officials, and you disregarded your professional obligations to the public and indeed every shred of your personal integrity by your participation in these crimes in what was on any view a flagrant breach of your position of trust.  Your culpability can also be assessed as high.  The sums involved in this case are substantial, albeit that this is primarily a case directed at corrupt processes rather than pecuniary outcomes.  These sums, however, do of course represent public funds.  You all by your criminal conduct have subverted public trust in NHS  management. Multiple health boards were involved.  The object was significant financial gain to Oricom.  I accordingly assess the level of harm in this case to fall into category two of the guideline, albeit on one view being on the cusp of category one.  The frauds perpetrated by you, Mr Hush and Mr Sharoudi were planned, concerted and were directed at the public purse. Two health boards were targeted.

Taking into account the full and substantial mitigation proffered by your respective senior counsel earlier this morning, I now sentence each of you on this indictment as follows.

Alan Robert Hush, on the corruption and Bribery Act charges, namely charges one, three and ten, you will serve a sentence of 5 years imprisonment on an in cumulo basis; on the fraud charges, namely charges five and eleven, along with the more minor charges libelled in charges six, seven and eight, you will serve a consecutive in cumulo sentence of 5 years imprisonment; and on the Proceeds of Crime Act charge, charge twelve, you will serve a concurrent sentence of 3 years imprisonment.  Having regard to the important sentencing principle of totality, the resulting total period of 10 years imprisonment will be reduced to one of 8 years, by way of a one year reduction from each of the said in cumulo periods.  These sentences will be backdated to the date of your conviction and initial remand into custody in this case, namely 29 April 2025.

Gavin Gerard Cox, on the Bribery Act charge, charge seventeen, you will serve a sentence of 6 years imprisonment.  On the Proceeds of Crime Act charge, charge 20, you will serve a concurrent sentence of 3 years imprisonment.  These sentences will be backdated to the date of your conviction and initial remand into custody, namely 29 April 2025.

Adam Paul Sharoudi, on the corruption and Bribery Act charges, namely charges two, four, nine and fourteen, you will serve a sentence of 6 years imprisonment on an in cumulo basis; on the fraud charges, namely charges five and eleven, you will serve a consecutive in cumulo sentence of 4 years imprisonment;  and on the Proceeds of Crime Act charge, charge twenty-six, you will serve a concurrent sentence of 5 years imprisonment.  Having regard in your case to the totality principle, the resulting total period of 10 years imprisonment will be reduced to one of 8 years, by way of a one year reduction from each of the said in cumulo periods.  These sentences will be backdated to the date of your conviction and initial remand into custody in this case, namely 29 April 2025.

Gavin John Brown, on the corruption and Bribery Act charges, namely charges fourteen, sixteen, twenty-one, twenty-three and twenty-five, you will serve a sentence of 7 years imprisonment on an in cumulo basis; and on the Proceeds of Crime Act charge, charge twenty-six, you will serve a concurrent sentence of 5 years imprisonment.  These sentences will be backdated to the date of your conviction and initial remand into custody, namely 29 April 2025.

Finally, on Crown motion, the court makes a disqualification order in respect of each of you, Mr Sharoudi and Mr Brown, in terms of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 section 2(1), for a period of 10 years.  That period will run from today."