Marriott Carolina Beach|"Serial Conman Mark Leslie Targeted Top North East Hotels"

Source            :    chroniclelive.co.uk/
Category        :   Marriott Carolina Beach
By                  :    Liz Walker
Posted By     :   Hotels Carolina Beach NC

Marriott Carolina Beach

Serial conman Mark Leslie ran up massive bills at two of the region’s top hotels, then fled without paying. Parading as a businessman who was entertaining prospective clients, unemployed trickster Mark Leslie enjoyed fine dining in high-class private rooms, luxury suites and golf buggies during his three-day scam, that also involved his wife, four-year-old son and two Tyneside drag queens.

In the first of two court appearances this week before Newcastle magistrates, the court heard how Leslie, of Alnwick Terrace, Wideopen, booked two suites at the exclusive Close House Hotel in Northumberland in August last year. But at the end of the two-night stay, during which the party had racked up a hotel, restaurant and bar bill of £1,459.95, including the hire of three golf buggies, he left without returning the keys or settling the bill.

Leslie, 28, pleaded not guilty to making off without payment and told magistrates he was not willing to pay as he was “disgusted” with the standard of service he had received at the hotel. He claimed he had later emailed the hotel to offer to pay a reduced amount. The court heard how, shortly after the party arrived at the hotel, the manager was called to their room where he found Leslie’s son screaming and covered in blood having cut his finger on shards of glass left lying in the bath, it was claimed.

Giving evidence, the duty manager at the time of the incident Peter Dawson said he was “sceptical” of Leslie’s version of the cause of the boy’s injuries. Leslie later made a complaint about how, despite being given permission to take golf buggies on a tour of the grounds as a goodwill gesture for his son’s injury, the party were told to return them by a “rude” member of staff who said they were “not golfers.” This left Leslie “angry and embarrassed”, he said.

Leslie, a former bar and pub chain area manager who is on income support and receives housing benefit, had booked the rooms under the name Starburst Leisure, a company he admitted has never traded as an entertainment business and has no funds. He claimed he had intended to pay for the rooms in cash raised by selling his wife’s iPad, the family TV and savings.Magistrates said Leslie’s explanation of events lacked credibility and found him guilty.

In a second hearing Leslie pleaded guilty to making off without paying a bill of £624.55 at Lumley Castle, Chester-le-Street days before the stay at Close House. On the day of trial, Leslie admitted the charge, but claimed he left after one night because the food and service were bad. Magistrates committed Leslie to Newcastle Crown Court for sentence, where he is already due for sentence on August 16 for another matter of fraud.

Source : chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/serial-conman-mark-leslie-targeted-5677826