The six-time grand slam champion Boris Becker, former World Number One, has been jailed on Friday for two years and six months under the Insolvency Act for hiding assets worth more than £2.5 million after being made bankrupt in June 2017. Previously, Becker was handed a two-year suspended sentence for tax evasion and attempted tax evasion worth €1.7m (about £1.4m) in Germany in 2002. The judge said: “You did not heed the warning you were given and the chance you were given by the suspended sentence and that is a significant aggravating factor.” Becker’s bankruptcy stemmed from a €4.6m loan from a private bank in 2013, as well as about $1.6m borrowed from a British businessman.
The champion had denied all the charges during hearings. He was acquitted of 20 charges at trial, including on allegations that he had deliberately hidden his trophies. But he was convicted of four counts which involved deliberate dishonesty.“This process his destroyed his career entirely, and removed any future prospect of him earning an income. His reputation, an essential part of the brand which gives him work, is in tatters.(…)“He won’t be able to find work and will have to rely on the charity of others if he is to survive,” Becker’s barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, declared. Becker earned $25 million in prize money and many times more in sponsorship during a career that ended in 1999. Much of his fortune disappeared as a result of his tax problems and a multi-million dollar divorce settlement with first wife Barbara in 2001. He retired with a career tally of 49 singles titles and 15 doubles titles.
