Jarvis signs up Grimsby Town

There is nothing fishy about Jarvis' £250,000 sponsorship of Grimsby Town Football Club, which hit the headlines last week.

Far from being an illicit move by convicted fraudster, Grimsby fan and Jarvis Rail accountant Stephen Venney, the deal was reached professionally and was personally signed off by Jarvis chief executive Paris Moayedi, a spokesman told CJ.

However Venney went missing on the day he was due to attend a press conference announcing the shirt sponsorship deal with Grimsby Town. A police search has failed to track him down.

Venney was jailed for 20 months in 1996 after swindling thousands of pounds from a Conservative Club in Immingham, Grimsby. Hired by Jarvis in March 1999, he became a management accountant for its rail business.

A Jarvis spokesman said: "We don't know why he's bunked off - people do and it's not always to do with work. We think he is in Plymouth. He's written to resign and we've accepted his resignation.

"We didn't know his previous history. If a person lies on their job application and supplies good references, it's hard to know how to avoid taking on someone like this. He was well liked while with us and his work was of a good standard. I do not think his departure was work-related."

Tony Richardson, Grimsby Town FC commercial manager, has called the Jarvis sponsorship deal a "life-saver".

Now that it has signed up, Jarvis is quite taken with the arrangement. "We were introduced and found that we liked the football club," said the spokesman. "It is based not too far from our headquarters at York.

"The football club does a lot of work in schools and its approach is similar to our ethos in schools PFI. There was a risk that without Jarvis all the club's work would not carry on - we're not in it for the football shirt branding exercise."

Jarvis was emblazoned on the Grimsby Town strip for the last game of the season. The club was relegated to division two, despite a 2-2 draw. The Jarvis logo will appear throughout the coming season.