Swindlers lived life of luxury on
holiday isle as victims suffered

The couple, and adviser Richard Pollett, would rub shoulders with their victims on golf courses, at the Majorca Cricket Club, and during Rotary Club dinners, all the while siphoning off more money to project an image of success.

Talking to the Yorkshire Post from Majorca, Julie Bussell, who arranged the Hirsts’ wedding celebrations on the island in 2006 after they had already tied the knot in Las Vegas at a cost of more than £90,000, said it was the most expensive party she had ever organised.

“They had a really fabulous venue in a five-star hotel,” Miss Bussell said. “It was a really luxury wedding with everything they wanted.

“They paid for their family and friends to stay in the hotel.

“Linda hired a Rolls-Royce that she wanted to take to the church. There was a golf tournament for the men and spa treatments for the ladies, on the Sunday there was a big barbecue at the hotel with a jazz band.

“I didn’t know anything about how John Hirst operated his business – he paid the contractors himself directly.

“He seemed a charming sort of guy.

“He had a nice car and lived in a nice house and appeared to have everything and people tend to feel comfortable then, that he knows what he is doing because he has got things like that.

“It is a horrendous situation.

“As soon as something like this comes to light you hear of more. There were people that lost their savings and their lives.”

As their scheme grew in size, Hirst and Pollett would target new arrivals to Majorca, preying on their unfamiliarity with the island and promoting themselves as trustworthy people who could help protect their assets.

Charles Dewey, 52, who moved to the island with his family in 2004 to an exclusive development called Ambassador Place where Pollett and Hirst also had apartments, told the Yorkshire Post the pair had signed him up just three months after his arrival.

He has lost an estimated £200,000 in the scheme and suffered a nervous breakdown as a result.

“Mr Pollett said he could help us integrate into the island community and could recommend an accountant and help with some advice about things,” he said.

“Later we invited him in and he mentioned the Gilher scheme to us.

“We were quite interested, it sounded good. One thing led to another and before we knew it we had Mr Hirst across the table from us.

“He talked about it as a simple investment scheme that he did for friends and family and people he knew and that it wasn’t a big deal.

“It was the same pitch that everybody else got.

“He very much played the softly spoken trustworthy Yorkshiremen – he played that card very well.

“It was very much a soft sell on both of their parts. Certainly Mr Pollett came across as a true blue Brit.

“They were quite flash, Hirst a bit more so.”

Even when the scheme started to unravel, Pollett and Hirst continued lying to investors assuring them their money was in safe hands.

It was only towards the end of 2009 that many started to realise their money had gone.

“It is the cruelty of the fact that he preyed on people, the majority of whom were retired,” Mr Dewey said.

“I’m young enough to come back from this but a lot of victims have not.

“There are also the people who died before they could ever hear the result.”