A businessman has admitted that he defrauded a food festival in north Wales of about £75,000.

Gregory Shankar, 53, took the money by making out cheques to himself from the association which runs the Mold Food Festival.

Shankar,
formerly of the Bryn Awel Hotel at Mold, pleaded guilty to two fraud
charges when he appeared at the town's crown court on Friday.

The former hotelier and restaurateur was bailed for sentencing in February.

Shankar's
barrister Simon Rogers told the court he accepted the vast majority of
the allegations against him, apart from about £8,000.

The judge
agreed with both the prosecution and defence that it would make no
significant difference to sentence, and there was no need to hear
evidence on the issue.

Shankar admitted that he defrauded the Mold Hotel and Restaurant Association, set up to run the annual local food festival.

The ex-hotelier, who is the former chair of the association, took around £35,000 during 2007 and about £40,000 during 2008.

The
prosecution says he used festival funds to balance the books at his
hotel, to make out cheques for his own personal use, and withdraw cash.

Shankar admitted one charge that during 2007, while occupying a
position of trust as chairman of the Mold Hotel and Restaurant
Association, in which he was expected to safeguard its financial
interests, he dishonestly abused that position intending to make a gain
for himself.

The second charge covered 2008.

Pre-sentence report

Mr
Rogers said that further investigations would take place so that the
prosecution and defence could agree how much of the defendant's own
money had been used on behalf of the association.

"The defendant asserts that he made a number of payments from his own account on behalf of the association," he explained.

Judge John Rogers told Shankar that his guilty pleas would greatly help him when it came to sentence.

He made it a condition of his bail that he co-operates with the probation service in drawing up a pre-sentence report.