{"id":179851,"date":"2023-09-11T18:04:24","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T18:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/?p=179851"},"modified":"2023-09-11T18:04:24","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T18:04:24","slug":"fraudster-who-conned-850k-from-vulnerable-people-jailed-for-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/fraudster-who-conned-850k-from-vulnerable-people-jailed-for-5-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraudster who conned \u00a3850k from vulnerable people jailed for 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Bogus financial adviser who defrauded vulnerable people out of almost \u00a3900k to fund his gambling addiction after befriending them is jailed for more than five years<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Peter Holbrook, 75, pleaded guilty to defrauding nine people out of \u00a3849,839<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A bogus financial adviser befriended elderly or vulnerable people to win their trust and then defrauded them out of almost \u00a3900,000 to fund his gambling addiction, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p>Despite having no formal qualifications, Peter Holbrook, 75, abused his clients&#8217; trust by writing wills, handling probate matters and making fake investments over a ten-year period.<\/p>\n<p>When some victims asked why they hadn&#8217;t received their inheritance Holbrook lied, and claimed he&#8217;d been distracted because his daughter had died of cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Today Holbrook was jailed for five years and three months at Bradford Crown Court after admitting fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The married father-of-two pleaded guilty to defrauding nine people out of \u00a3849,839 to feed his gambling habit between 2011 and 2021.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/11\/17\/75302681-12505471-image-a-1_1694450489541.jpg\" height=\"897\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Peter Holbrook arrives at Bradford Crown Court to be sentenced for defrauding some of his clients out of more than \u00a3800,000<\/p>\n<p>Jailing Holbrook, Recorder Richard Thyne KC told him he had &#8216;taken away people&#8217;s financial security at a time when they were vulnerable and most needed it&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8216;You took away hard-earned money that parents had saved to give to their children upon their death. Plans for retirement were overturned and homes were sold to pay for the cost of care that should have come from people&#8217;s savings.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Many of his victims died before Holbrook was brought to justice, but family members packed the public gallery to see him sentenced.<\/p>\n<h3>READ MORE:\u00a0Level of fraud on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp higher than robberies burglaries and killings combined<\/h3>\n<p>Angus MacDonald, prosecuting for West Yorkshire Trading Standards, said Holbrook would &#8216;befriend the victims before offering to handle their probate.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>In many cases he forged letters from banks or investment companies to maintain a false cover story when clients asked about their funds.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Many victims worked hard all their lives, only to see their life savings gambled away,&#8217; said Mr MacDonald.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Middleton lost \u00a3231,625 to the fraudster. He prepared the wills for Mrs Middleton and her husband Leslie and when he died in 2017 he met the widow and her two daughters to organise the probate.<\/p>\n<p>He told her she was now a &#8216;very wealthy woman&#8217; and that he would invest the money. They trusted him, but he gambled away the money or used it to repay other victims.<\/p>\n<p>In a victim impact statement Mrs Middleton stated she will never get over what the defendant has done and she now has no inheritance to pass on to her daughters.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest loser was Joan Dobson, who lost \u00a3384,303 to Holbrook. Mrs Dobson was 85 when she died in January and had been married to husband Herbert, who died in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Holbrook used his &#8216;powers of persuasion&#8217; to convince her he could handle the probate and she transferred the six-figure sum for him to invest.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/11\/17\/75302683-12505471-image-a-2_1694450492489.jpg\" height=\"431\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>A general view of Bradford Crown Court<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he gambled it away or transferred sums to other victims. A statement previously made by Mrs Dobson said Holbrook&#8217;s fraud was &#8216;shocking and devastating&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Her daughter described how she blamed herself for being tricked &#8211; calling herself &#8216;a stupid old woman&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Fox said her parents had worked hard throughout their lives to save the money Holbrook took from them, and it left her mother questioning every item of expenditure as her health &#8216;drastically declined&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Other victims found themselves out-of-pocket to sums ranging from \u00a320,000 to \u00a3150,000.<\/p>\n<p>Holbrook also transferred \u00a347,000 to his own wife, repaid a personal loan of \u00a315,000 and funded a holiday to Holland and Belgium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;None of that money has been repaid,&#8217; said Mr MacDonald.<\/p>\n<p>A letter written by Holbrook to the court said: &#8216;There is nothing that can excuse the utter contempt I have for myself. I wish I could turn back the clock and do these cases properly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;My actions are disgraceful, wrong, and the worst is that I have betrayed these decent, nice people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The hurt, stress and nightmare I have put them through is unforgivable.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>John Batchelor, mitigating, said his gambling addiction came &#8216;out of nowhere&#8217; as he found himself handling large sums of other people&#8217;s money.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It started with horses and then betting shops and then online, and it became pernicious indeed,&#8217; said Mr Batchelor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He was gambling, at times, twelve hours a day. Those betting companies have benefitted, and in reality, nobody else has,&#8217; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Dobson&#8217;s son George Dobson welcomed the custodial sentence.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about the family ordeal outside court he said: &#8216;It just opened up a nightmare for us really. The money was passed down from my father, from his hard work as a teacher of a lot of years, and it was her savings as well. We haven&#8217;t seen any of that back.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12505471\/Bogus-financial-adviser-defrauded-vulnerable-people-900k-jailed-five-years.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bogus financial adviser who defrauded vulnerable people out of almost \u00a3900k to fund his gambling addiction after befriending them is jailed for more than five years Peter Holbrook, 75, pleaded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fraudster who conned \u00a3850k from vulnerable people jailed for 5 years - Hot World Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/fraudster-who-conned-850k-from-vulnerable-people-jailed-for-5-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fraudster who conned \u00a3850k from vulnerable people jailed for 5 years - 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