Mark Branagan
A fraudster who stole £10m to feed his gambling addiction while working as a financial consultant left a £7m "IOU" in the safe for his bosses at the Halifax Bank, a court has heard.
Graham Price, 58, was on holiday in New York when a stunned auditor found the note at the Halifax agency he ran in Gowerton, South Wales, Swansea Crown Court was told yesterday.
The smooth-talking conman, who had duped 84 unsuspecting clients out of life savings of more than £3m, had already put auditor Lesley Tucker off from making her inspection with a variety of excuses.
She had become suspicious and while Price was away was determined to count all the cash on the premises, in-cluding takings from the tills.
Christopher Clee, prosecuting, said one till came up with a total in excess of £7m. "Her degree of incredulity must have been substantial."
In the safe she found three shoeboxes. Inside one was an empty envelope and a Halifax compliments slip signed by Price stating: "I Graham Price borrowed £7 million from the Halifax."
The discovery started an investigation back to January 2001, when, while working at the same office as an independent financial consultant, Price began to sell investments to Halifax customers on his own behalf.
He would offer them high returns for investments in land leases and ground rents which quickly accrued large amounts of interest that would encourage investors to hand over more.
He was part-owner of at least 13 race horses and salted away cash in Premium Bonds, shares and cars, while encouraging one elderly victim to remortgage her property to get his hands on more.
Mr Clee said cash from later investors was used to pay previous ones – until money ran so low he started stealing from the Halifax. Price was arrested on his return from holiday last November.
Mr Clee said: "He accepted entirely he had advised a large number of people to invest with him in a land lease scheme which did not exist. He said the money received from the investors was used to feed his gambling habit."
Price, of Llansamlet, Swansea, who admitted 43 theft and deception charges and asked for 263 to be considered, will be sentenced today. More than 50 of his victims were in court.
The court heard the Halifax initially lost £6.95m but this was reduced after £2.3m was raised from selling Price's assets, including his home and business premises.
Losses to clients could increase if they have to repay the Halifax for illegal payments made into their accounts by Price to make it look like they were earning on their investments.
The bank has been accused of adding to their misery by freezing and clearing out accounts.
But it says it was a victim itself and acted only to clear up discrepancies left by Price's fraud.

Victims Who Paid The Price

Landlady lost her home and livelihood

Suzie Mills lost her home and livelihood and was forced to take a low-paid job in a nursing home after "investing" £500,000 in one of Graham Price's get- rich-quick schemes.
After selling her long-established bed and breakfast business and her property, she entrusted her every penny to the fraudster – hoping to fulfil her retirement dream of opening a private healing centre.
Now living in a rented flat in Honiton, Devon, Ms Mills, 58, left, is struggling to make ends meet.
She said: "I have been very near to cracking up completely. I do not know how I have got through it to tell you the truth.
"My whole life has been totally and utterly destroyed. It made my confidence go. It made everything go. When you wake up afraid every day, it has to have an effect on your health.
"It probably sounds strange to hear that I sold a business and put the money with this person in Wales. But I had heard about Graham Price through friends and I knew their standard of living had improved. I had no doubt about the investment."
She even persuaded her best friend to part with his live savings. He died 10 weeks ago from cancer – tormented to the end by financial worries.
As a Halifax customer his account had been frozen without warning, like hers. Many of the 85 investors with Price banked with the Halifax and their accounts received interest payments supposedly from their investments.
When an internal bank inquiry revealed the vast majority of payments were bogus, balances were returned to zero. But the move left investors feeling they had been victimised for a second time and a victims' group is mounting a legal challenge against the bank.

Employee trusted her boss with life savings

Jennifer Ellis wanted to bank with a friend – and who better than her own boss whom she had known for 20 years? But her faith in Graham Price cost her £120,000 – her life savings.
Mrs Ellis, a former trader in Gowerton, near Swansea, said the apparently successful businessman had a reputation for being boring but reliable.
Working from a small but busy office in Gowerton, he ran a counter service for the Halifax Bank and operated his own separate investment firm.
Mrs Ellis, 51, of Penclawdd, Gower, near Swansea, was one among 85 investors who had an unshakeable belief in the conman who fooled his victims with a detailed "break down" of their investments.
On paper she was a stakeholder in ground rents and maintenance contracts for luxury apartments in places from Cardiff to Canary Wharf. "I didn't hand over all my money in one go. It was a gradual thing," she said.
"But he would say 'If you put £5,000 in this I will double it in six months'. So you thought 'This is good'. He just convinced us completely about what we were buying into. No one suspected.
"I worked with him for three years, although I left before all this came out, and we were voted agency of the year in 2003. We all got Harrods hampers.
"What a conman. They say that the worst criminals are respectable and quiet people and that was certainly true in his case."
She had already retired when his scam unravelled, but has now had to go back to work. As the head of a 43-member victims' support group, however, she is now focusing her anger on the Halifax Bank by taking legal action.
And despite having only meagre funds to draw on, she is determined they will win their challenge.

Region's Rich Array Of Swindlers

Other big fraudsters have included:
l Scarborough Building Society finance director Gerald Waterworth was jailed for 18 months after plundering more than £200,000 in a five-year fraud. He stole £110,443 from his employers to pay back £98,806 taken from the town's Citizens' Advice Bureau as he struggled to escape an unravelling spiral of debt.

l Disgruntled banker John Worsnop was jailed for four years for swindling clients after he became disillusioned with his 30-year career working his way up from junior cashier to lending manager at Barclays branch in Garforth, near Leeds. Worsnop, 52 of Ledgate Lane, Burton Salmon, near Pontefract, siphoned off £179,000.

l Mortgage broker Noel Ward was jailed for fraud and ordered earlier this year to pay back nearly £1.5m he fleeced from banks – or face another 10 years in prison. Ward, from Bradford, is already serving six years after being convicted of a scam involving fraudulent applications for mortgage advances made for properties where the price quoted was higher than the actual price.

l Cheating Yorkshire businessman Charles Forsyth was jailed for three-and-a-half years over lies to secure over £2m in bank overdrafts and credit and a £250,000 Government grant. Forsyth, 45, who attended Tony Blair's former school Fettes in Edinburgh, sold defective computers through his former North Yorkshire firm Personal Computer Science.

l Bank clerk Sally Cunningham, with an unblemished 15-year service record, began a process of systematic fraud which went on for over three years and netted her close on £40,000 to improve her lifestyle. Cunningham, 36, a clerk with Lloyds TSB in Harrogate, regularly transferred varying amounts from the bank's ledger to two personal accounts she held there.

l The £1.1m Millennium Dome fraud mastermind Simon Brophy, 39, from Wakefield, was jailed for a four-and-a-half years after funding a life of luxury by milking the Thames-side attraction. As head of the Dome's lighting he ensured a lucrative contract went to Pro Design – a firm he owned. He set up a complex array of bank accounts to launder the money overseas.