Paintball fraudster got tax cash helping hand

By Michael MacLeod

SCOTTISH Enterprise has come under fire for dishing out £30,000 to help a Scots paintball company run by a convicted fraudster.

Edinburgh-based Bedlam Paintball got taxpayer-funded help to develop its “brand strategy” in 2007.

But there are calls for the quango to review its background checks after it emerged Bedlam’s owner Roman Rock, 49, was jailed for three years in 1997 for his part in a £100,000 credit card fraud.

Central Scotland MSP John Wilson said Scottish Enterprise had “failured to learn lessons from previous cases where it has given support to companies run by people with dubious backgrounds.”

But Rock, real name Jan, insisted he had turned his business dealings around since his prison spell for the scam.