Neil Casson, 52, cheated lovers, financiers and businesses out of more than £300,000
A serial conman who posed as a Ferrari driving playboy has been forced to hand over a £5,000 betting win to his victims.
Neil Casson, 52, cheated lovers, financiers and businesses out of more than £300,000 claiming he had won £1.25million on the National Lottery.
But he was a penniless fraudster ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ by convincing investors to buy into elaborate scams.
The love rat from Galgate, Lancashire, targeted vulnerable women convincing them to hand over their life savings to invest in ‘get rich quick’ schemes.
He persuaded businessmen to invest in schemes to import jet skis and sewing machines into the UK and got finance on a luxury Ferrari.
One woman even sold her house to lend him money, which he blew on gambling and spent on luxury cars and holidays.
He was jailed at Preston Crown Court for nearly five years in May 2016, after admitting 20 charges of fraud.
Separately, he was filmed by a friend in his £150,000 Ferrari racing from 0mph to 102mph in just seven seconds, before the passenger uploaded the footage to YouTube.
When the pair fell out over a business deal, Kevin Moore posted the video online in an act of revenge. It was later seen by police, who hauled Casson to court.
Casson was released from prison in May 2018 and signed on for Universal Credit, after being declared unfit for work.
He has been gifted money from family members and has supplemented his income at the bookies.
Casson was filmed by a friend in his £150,000 Ferrari racing from 0mph to 102mph in just seven seconds, before the passenger uploaded the footage to YouTube
In April he bet more than £2,000 on Aston Villa being promoted to the Premier League.
But when the team went up in May, bookmaker Willliam Hill froze his £5,750 winnings under the Proceeds of Crime Act to allow the court to make a ruling as to whether he could keep it.
At a previous hearing, Casson was ordered to pay £11,000 to his victims – all that was left of the £300,000 he scammed.
Recorder Simon Killeen said he would vary the original order to include Casson’s recent win.
When the pair fell out over a business deal, Casson’s friend Kevin Moore posted the video online in an act of revenge. It was later seen by police, who hauled Casson to court
He said: ‘The reality is that he got money from a number of sources and there is no doubt he has chosen to use that money to some significant degree, to gamble, which is the very thing he was doing during the lengthy period he was engaged in criminality.’
Casson told the court since his release his mother had given him £6,000 to put on the football, saying: ‘She was into the horses herself.’
An ex-partner had given him £4,200 to pay off a loan shark in what the judge said was ‘an uncanny and rather unpleasant resemblance to some of the matters for which he was convicted.’
He had also received a £5,200 Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) payment and had been given money by his brother.
In April, Casson bet more than £2,000 on Aston Villa being promoted to the Premier League – and they went up the next month
Casson told the court he regretted his crimes and was trying to get back on his feet after his release from prison by making money the only way he knew how – gambling.
He said would pay back the full £300,000 if he got a big win at the bookmaker’s. However he still had significant debts and could not pay any more to his 20 victims.
The judge said: ‘If he was in such a powerless state, the last thing he would be doing would be risking everything as he repeatedly seems to do.’
He ordered Casson to hand over his gambling winnings but allowed him to keep a Vauxhall Insignia Estate car worth £2,000 to enable him to visit family.