Financial adviser preyed on his friends

John Sheldon Williams, 71, left dozens of people out of pocket after the collapse of his Ponzi scheme – which relied on paying previous investors with new investors' money.

Williams, of St Annes, Lancashire, talked clients of his firm, Acorn Marketing Services, into handing over money which he promised to pay back with good interest between 1993 and 2008.

He told his victims the money was being used in property investment or providing loans.

The defendant took thousands of pounds of redundancy money from some and in 2006 took 120,000 equity from the sale of a family's home.

When they asked for it back six months later he only paid 20,000, having spent the rest on premium bonds and settling debts. In 2008 he had repaid only 50,000 to the family.

A jury at Preston Crown Court convicted Williams of 35 counts of theft totalling 639,685. Prosecutor Peter Horgan said the investors thought of him as a family friend.

Williams had remortgaged his home in 2003 for 102,000.

Two years later he took out a second mortgage for 15,000 and sold the property in 2008 netting 53,000, which he used to pay off outstanding debts.

That year he was scheduled to pay out a number of schemes – "but there was nowhere else for the defendant to turn", said Mr Horgan.

Close to bankruptcy he wrote to his clients saying he was retiring because of ill health.

Weeks later he wrote again to his clients saying he had been defrauded by three partners who had taken the money and run.

Williams will be sentenced on March 22.

The Ponzi scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who swindled investors in the United States in the 1920s.