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Former employees of a second-hand clothing business at the centre of a £200k fraud trial have broken their silence on life at the firm, making claims of late wages, mounting bills, call dodging and a “vicious circle” in the treatment of orders.
Their claims were given as evidence at the Royal Court trial of businesswoman Michelle Yuksel – the founder of Parisma and Logistics2Go – who denies cheating people in developing countries out of thousands to plug debts in her ailing businesses.
After hearing from former customers last week, the jury yesterday heard from two of Ms Yuksel's former workers.
One explained that Ms Yuksel had given him a list with the names of three or four people, who he was instructed to tell she wasn't there if they called.
“At the end of the day she was my boss… I did what she told me to do,” the man commented.
The employee also recalled seeing up to nine orders waiting to be fulfilled in the warehouse and that he was only be able to use two out of the four or five shipping companies in Jersey, due to outstanding bills.
After the police searched Parisma’s premises in St. Lawrence under a warrant in February 2013, the employee said that he spent the next two to three weeks working in Ms Yuksel's kitchen alongside two other employees.
Pictured: The jury heard that the police searched the company's premises in 2013.
The company then moved to a “spacious” warehouse at the Rue des Pres trading estate. A removal firm brought stock into the warehouse, but the man said it wouldn’t have been enough to fill a 40ft container – “no chance” – or even a 24ft one.
The man explained that, by that time, he was owed two to three months’ worth of wages. He said that while he “always had the choice to move and lose the money”, he decided to keep working for Parisma in the hope he would one day be paid.
He added that Parisma owed him £9,000 in commissions, which were rarely paid. When he queried it with Ms Yuksel, he was offered shares in the company. He refused the offer, remembering: “I wasn’t interested in shares, I just wanted the money.”
The former employee, who was promoted Operations Manager in 2013, told the jury that Ms Yuksel created Logistics2Go because Parisma was “not allowed to trade anymore."
He also explained that, due to “bad publicity” at the time, Ms Yuksel had agreed with another employee that she would not spend too much time at the Rue des Pres warehouse.
He said he had no say in what happened to the money paid to the company and had no control over the firm’s bank accounts.
Pictured: Advocate Ian Jones is defending Ms Yuksel.
Defending Ms Yuksel, Advocate Ian Jones suggested that the man had stayed with the company because he believed the business was good and had potential.
“Without Parisma’s debts and bad name, I thought it could work,” the man replied.
He later admitted that there were occasions when stock was ordered and the warehouse was “jam packed."
A woman, who joined the business in 2011, also said she didn’t have a lot of knowledge over the business’ finances, although she had access to bank statements. She said the business fluctuated between being “very wealthy” or using the overdraft facility.
She said it was difficult at times to “reconcile the business finances”, as money was taken out of the Jersey account to be sent an account in the UK, which she had no access to or visibility of.
She told the jury the company had to take a loan in 2012 to get stock and that one or two others followed.
Pictured: The trial against Ms Yuksel is being heard in Royal Court.
Questioned by the Crown Advocate Simon Thomas about how many orders the business tended to deal with, she said “quite a few came in”, adding that she was under the impression that a few of them went out.
She also described a “vicious circle” where whoever came in the warehouse asking for their order would be given whichever order was being prepared at the time. This meant that the original recipient of the order would have to get back in line for another order to be ready. The woman said Ms Yuksel had told the employees to do so.
The trial continues today and is expected to conclude next week.
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