ONE of Worcester’s leading entrepreneurs has been charged with fraud after a lengthy police investigation.

Brandon Weston, who set up the award-winning Premier Places letting agency, has been charged with 10 fraud-related offences and will appear in court next week.

Since his arrest in March 2009 after voluntarily attending a police interview, Weston, aged 41, has been on bail, with officers passing a case file to the Crown Prosecution Service, leading to Weston and another man being charged on Thursday, June 3.

Chris Williams, aged 46, has also been charged in relation to the same investigation with eight fraud-related offences.

Weston, who established Premier Places in Worcester in 1995, later sold the company after his arrest.

Weston is appearing before Worcester magistrates on Tuesday, when he faces two charges of conspiracy to defraud, and eight other charges of fraud by false representation.

Williams faces two counts of conspiracy to defraud and six counts of fraud by false representation.

Premier Places was sold by Weston to the firm’s accountants Williams Maclaren, run by Williams – he resigned as a director of the lettings business in January this year, according to company documents.

Officers in West Mercia Police’s economic crime unit have been leading the case, and searched properties in Worcestershire as part of their investigations.

Weston, who no longer lives in the Worcester area, is one of the city’s more well-known entrepreneurs having built up Premier Places, before entering the restaurant business in 1998 with the opening of the Glasshouse. He is no longer involved in that business.

He won Entrepreneur of the Year at Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Awards in 2006 and in 2008, Premier Places won the Best Estate Agency in Worcestershire award at the Daily Mail Property Awards.

A police spokeswoman said: “Two men each face two charges of conspiracy to defraud, and a number of other charges of fraud by false representation.”

Both men have always denied any wrongdoing.