The Provincial Court of Bizkaia has sentenced the owner of an English language academy in Bilbao to one year in prison and a fine of 1,080 euro for defrauding 13 families over a summer course in Ireland that was never organised.
The ruling, issued by consent agreement and now final, also suspends the prison sentence for two years on the condition that the offender does not commit any further crimes during this period and pays the required compensation for moral damages within two months.
The court found it proven that in 2019, the owner of the Bilbao-based academy offered families associated with two language schools in Barakaldo an organised summer trip to Dublin for July of that year. The offered trip was intended for minor students to learn English while staying with host families in Ireland.
To convince the parents, the defendant held several meetings, deceiving them into believing he was making all the necessary travel arrangements. A total of 13 families paid a combined sum of 37,050 euro to cover the costs of the language trip.
However, the accused had never intended to organise the trip. On 1st July 2019, just one day before the planned departure, he sent a WhatsApp message to the parents notifying them that the course was cancelled. Immediately afterwards, he became unreachable, closed his academy, and kept the funds that he had transferred into his bank account.
Prior to the court’s decision, on 14th July 2026, the defendant deposited 37,500 euro into court accounts to cover civil liabilities, enabling the court to apply a mitigating factor for repairing the financial harm caused. Alongside the prison sentence and fine, the court ordered the defendant to pay 500 euro to each affected family in compensation for moral damages.
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