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£10m bail for Dabs founder on sex charge
A millionaire businessman who has been charged with sex and drug offences has been released from custody after agreeing a £10m bail package.
Anthony David Atherton — the founder of online retailer Dabs.com — has been charged with attempted rape, possession of Class A drugs, false imprisonment and making threats to kill.
The offences are alleged to have happened at around 4.45pm on Sunday last week.
A bail application for Atherton, 50, of Victoria Road, Heaton, was heard at Bolton Crown Court on Friday.
He was granted bail after agreeing a 10m surety which will have to be paid to the court if he fails to abide by his bail conditions.
Atherton was bailed to a Priory clinic in Cheshire where he has been ordered to follow an in-patient programme for one month, followed by weekly check-ins.
Mr Atherton, a former supermarket shelf-stacker from Leigh, is believed to have made up to 90m when he sold Dabs.com – based on the Wingates Industrial Estate in Westhoughton – to BT in 2006.
Dabs, which still trades in Westhoughton, sells computer hardware and accessories through its Internet web site. Atherton has since severed his links with the business, which has around a million consumers across the UK, as well as a small operation in France.
Its revenues were 180m in the year ending March 31, 2005.
It was initially launched in 1990 as Dabs Direct, a mail order operation.
The company was transformed as an e-retailer, Dabs.com, nine years later and offered computers, mobile phones, cameras and home electronic equipment for sale over the Internet.
Atherton was arrested last Sunday and was then remanded in custody by Bolton Magistrates on Tuesday.
They committed his case to Bolton Crown Court where his next appearance is due on October 31.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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