Joseph Johnson described himself as ‘Billy big balls’ while colluding with staff to resell match passes at ‘significantly inflated prices’
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A self-confessed tout who colluded with staff in Liverpool FC’s ticket office to resell passes for games at “significantly inflated prices” compared one of his key contacts to Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Joseph Johnson, who also called himself “Billy big balls” during his WhatsApp messages, was one of five men and two women who went on trial at Liverpool Crown Court this week accused of being part of the lucrative conspiracy.
Said to have been a “successful ticket tout”, he and his associates are said to have operated the “Amazon” of his trade from a leased office at a sixth form college. The fraudulent scheme spanned several years and involved the creation of more than 1,000 LFC memberships using fake names and details, potentially generating hundreds of thousands of pounds in profits.
While Johnson had previously denied a total of five charges, his counsel Dominic Thomas asked for his client to be rearraigned on Thursday. He then pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, with Judge David Swinnerton directing the jury to record guilty verdicts against him in relation to these offences.
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A further charge of fraud by false representation which the 42-year-old, of Chelford Road in Eccleston, St Helens, had faced was ordered to lie on the file, as was a fifth matter of money laundering. His parents and partner have also been in the dock of courtroom 31.
Mum Angela Johnson, 63, and of Buttermere Close in Kirkby, denied one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, as well as money laundering, while dad David Johnson, 62, of Boyes Brow in Kirkby, had pleaded not guilty to money laundering. Girlfriend Sian Woodyatt, 35, and also of Chelford Road, meanwhile denied one offence of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.
David and Angela Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
However, the crown discontinued the matters against them on the same date, with no evidence being offered in relation to these counts and formal not guilty verdicts being recorded. Meanwhile, Liam Rice, 35 and of Mount Crescent in Kirkby, changed his pleas to guilty on one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.
Lee Smith, 38, of Moss Lane in Ormskirk, also admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. And James Johnson, 34, of Westcombe Road in Anfield, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and one offence of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.
Further counts which they had previously faced were ordered to lie on the file. Another defendant, Louis James, of Lapford Crescent in Kirkby, earlier admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and was not before the jury.
The 37-year-old will now be sentenced alongside Joseph and James Johnson, Rice and Smith on November 28, with the defendants being released on bail until this date and Joseph Johnson being ordered to hand his passport in at St Anne Street Police Station. Having discharged the jury, Judge Swinnerton told him as he adjourned the case: “I think you are realistic about the inevitability of what the type of sentence will be.”
Liam Rice and Lee Smith, far left, outside Liverpool Crown Court, with Angela and David Johnson pictured far right(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Nicola Daley previously told a jury of seven men and five women during the prosecution’s opening on Wednesday: “In simple terms, each of the defendants on trial before you are said to have been involved in a sophisticated ticket fraud. The central purpose of this fraud was to obtain as many Liverpool football tickets as possible, the prosecution say by various dishonest means, in order to then resell those tickets at significantly inflated prices via online secondary websites such as Viagogo, StubHub and Ticketbis. As time went on, the fraud was extended beyond Liverpool Football Club to the obtaining, by dishonest, means and then reselling of tickets to matches for other Premier League football clubs as well.”
The court heard that both Louis James and James Johnson worked in the ticket office, with the former having been employed by LFC on a casual basis from as early as 2002 before moving to this role in October 2016. The latter meanwhile had previously been an Anfield Stadium tour guide before being reassigned to an “identical position” in 2014, thereafter leaving the club in December 2017.
However, in February 2018, an upgrade to LFC’s ticket management identified four “local general sale tickets”, specially priced at £9 for supporters residing in Liverpool postcodes, which were processed and sold before they had been made available to fans. This led to further internal investigations, which revealed that numerous other tickets in different names had been purchased using the same credit card.
An identical password, “Luis7”, was also used for sales to multiple supposed customers, while many were made using the address of the Crowne Plaza hotel on Princes Dock in Liverpool city centre. Games against Newcastle United and FC Porto during March 2018 were among those where discrepancies were identified, with tickets seemingly purchased using different bank cards but the same supporter names.
Email addresses which were utilised meanwhile “followed a similar format”, consisting of a person’s name followed by “lfc@gmail.com”. A further audit then established that James had “been responsible for processing somewhere between 40 to 50 local general tickets sales per home game”.
This led to him being observed by a senior member of staff being collected from the stadium in a white Mercedes 4×4 by co-defendant Joseph Johnson, who is no relation to James Johnson. The car then parked close to the nearby Park pub on Walton Breck Road before James “took up his position” at the sales window of LFC’s ticket office.
Later the same day, he was observed removing around 30 envelopes containing tickets, season passes and membership cards from storage boxes and “secreting them at his desk”. He was subsequently said to have exchanged messages with Joseph Johnson, described as being “central to the business”, before he exited his vehicle, approached the window and was handed the envelopes.
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
This led to the matter being reported to Merseyside Police and James’ dismissal from the club. Detectives seized his mobile phone at this time and analysed almost a quarter of a million messages and nearly 27,000 images.
Ms Daley said of their findings: “Messages extracted from Louis James’ phone, in fact, tell you the story, what was going on. Ultimately, piecing together lots of different things, the police discovered that over 1,000 memberships appear to have either been created or used in relation to Liverpool FC tickets as part of this. Messages between the defendants showed the almost daily, minute by minute, exchange about tickets between Louis James and Joseph Johnson from 2016 onwards.”
Jurors heard of one WhatsApp exchange in August 2015, when Louis James told James Johnson: “My mate has 22 membership cards. Say you make £40 on each ticket for every home game, you get around £15,000. You would get more than that though, the big games would fetch well more.”
Ms Daley added: “The prosecution say that, what was being discussed at the beginning, this is it in its infancy. It is showing that Louis James has a mate who already had 22 membership cards to be able to get tickets.
“If you can then buy them, there were certain sales which meant they could buy tickets for £9, meant for locals or those with Liverpool postcodes, and sell them for £40. Tickets meant for genuine fans at £9 are being sold to others. It is not a loss to the club. The loss is to the person that should have been entitled to buy that local ticket.”
In spite of James’ apprehension, jurors were told that “the business developed significantly” from this point onwards. The recovery of Joseph Johnson’s phone, following his own arrest on August 8 2019, led to officers discovering a WhatsApp group in which he, James, Lee Smith and Liam Rice were said to be participants.
Lee Smith and Liam Rice outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Ms Daley said of this: “That revealed messages in relation to the buying and selling of tickets on not only a large, nationwide, but an international scale. In the main, the messages centred around a website that was created after Louis James had been sacked, a website created by Joseph Johnson, Lee Smith and Liam Rice, which was called Seatfinder UK.
“Overall, it is really what is in the messages which, the prosecution say, demonstrates the dishonesty of these defendants. [Joseph Johnson] originally just had a few laptops set up, harvesting and selling tickets.
“But that is not how the business ended up. The business ultimately ended up with business premises being set up, as well as this website, and then multiple computers purchased to allow multiple people to be involved in the business, manning those computers.”
Seatfinder was said to have been set up in April 2018, with messages exchanged in August the same year having apparently referred to 80 tickets for games against Paris Saint German and Napoli being sold for a combined £12,500, having been worth a total of £720 at face value. The business had been registered in Dubai, “away from the eyes of UK law”, in late March before, on April 10, Smith signed a lease on an office at St Helens College’s Kirkby campus, which the company “was to be operated from”.
Liam Rice and Lee Smith outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Videos which were subsequently recovered from Joseph Johnson’s phone showed rows of desks in this room, rented at a rate of £550 per month and complete with dozens of computers, apparently for the purpose of “harvesting” tickets. The site meanwhile branded itself as “the UK’s number one for ticket resellers and buyers” and offered a “100 per cent money back guarantee” for dissatisfied customers.
Ms Daley said: “The prosecution say that room became the heartbeat of the business. This was a business that had grown from bedroom computers to an operational, international business with a sophisticated website selling platform.
“The prosecution’s case is that the business, by this stage, had moved on significantly since its infancy. It had gone from the equivalent of the market stall to a local shop and, thereafter, to the supermarket chain or Amazon of unauthorised football resale tickets.
“It was not until the summer of 2020 that the police identified and searched the business premises. The fact of covid meant that, when the police went in, it, in fact, appeared that the majority of the office had been cleared. The police never found that office in the condition that you saw.
“What they did find were four desktop computers, which were seized. An examination of them found various documents. They seemed to be used to get various football club memberships. Those computers were used to store lists of names, addresses, membership numbers, passwords and email addresses.”
One of these PCs contained a document which made apparent references to the operation having 250 memberships at Liverpool FC, 100 at each of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur and 50 at Manchester City. Other notes meanwhile contained apparent instructions which would be issued to purchasers, as well as “thank you letters from Seatfinder UK” and invoices.
Members of the jury were also read several further WhatsApp messages exchanged between the defendants. During one conversation in May 2016, Louis James told Joseph Johnson: “Be careful on that Facebook Joe. Only takes so many shares and someone to see it, or someone in work, then they’re putting Joseph Johnson in the system and then your empire is gone.”
Johnson would go on to say “deleted” in response. The following month, James would ask him “how many cards you trying to get?”, to which he replied: “As many as possible, Lou to be honest. Have bought another 24, so have got 60 now, then whatever I get with you as well. Just bought 20 of each members for United, Arsenal City and Chelsea ‘cos I’m bored.”
Then, in August 2016, James told Joseph Johnson: “I hate it here Joe. They just offered me a full time contact too.”
Johnson would respond by saying: “Take it Lou, don’t be f***ing about. It’s all starting to come together now. Am only getting bigger and bigger, so pull your kecks up as well and we will smash it lad. Put yourself where you need to be.”
In September, James was allegedly shown to be “abusing his position within the club to find ways of obtaining tickets” while sending a WhatsApp which read: “Already found one person on this priority rights list who has never used it to buy final tickets, even though he’s entitled to. 1,093 there is on the list. Got to be a few who don’t use them.”
On another occasion in October 2016, Johnson was said to have “made plain” in a further message that he “needed Louis James on the ticketing window” by telling him: “Work your magic Lou. At least 10 bits today from you. Otherwise I’m gonna lose thousands.”
In further messages, Johnson went on to add: “I’m the man in Liverpool. My b****cks are massive. Billy big balls.”
James told him in response “I’m the one in the underworld no one knows about”, before Joseph Johnson referred to him as the “Ronnie Biggs of the ticket office”. Ms Daley said of these messages: “They know, you might think, that this is wrong, describing themselves in that way because they were involved in a crime.”
Of Joseph Johnson, Ms Daley said: “Undoubtedly, he was a successful ticket tout. He was operating, the prosecution say, across the United Kingdom, predominantly selling football tickets. Much of the evidence will relate to Liverpool FC tickets, but you will also see him selling tickets for other clubs.
“It is not clear when Joseph Johnson first secured the help of Louis James. But what is evident is that there was a clear business relationship between them that had started, at least, by 2016.”
Joseph Johnson was meanwhile said to have “used Lee Smith and Liam Rice”, “friends and associates” of both him and Louis James, as well as his parents Angela and David Johnson and girlfriend Sian Woodyatt “by using their bank cards, with their knowledge, to obtain memberships and tickets”. Financial investigations found transfers of “hundreds of thousands of pounds” into related accounts, including money allegedly being “put through” a hair extension business named Russian Locks.
Sian Woodyatt outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Ms Daley added of Rice: “Liam Rice was undoubtedly good friends with both Louis James and Joseph Johnson, the prosecution say. But, in addition to that, the prosecution suggest that the evidence will show that he was one of the main business brains behind the operation. He regularly sent instructions as to what tasks needed to be completed, made suggestions as to how to grow the business and appeared to deal with the financial side of the business, how wages would be paid, and kept Joseph Johnson updated as to the balance in various accounts.”
Of Smith, the prosecution counsel said: “He was the owner of a number of businesses, Ada Lilly’s, a florists, and Totally Wicked, a vape shop. The prosecution say that he too was was central to it. He was involved, the prosecution say, in not only the purchasing of tickets but also making arrangements to collect the tickets and creating accounts and buying tickets online.
“The prosecution say that this is not just about ticket touting, not just about the general resale of a few tickets, but, in fact, the obtaining of huge numbers of tickets meant for those living locally, those tickets being obtained by various fraudulent means in order to make huge profits by reselling those tickets at overinflated prices without making it clear there was a serious risk of them being refused entry. Joseph Johnson was at the centre, but, to further his criminality, he utilised the assistance of his partner, parents and friends to obtain as many Liverpool FC memberships and tickets and, thereafter, launder the proceeds.”