Craig Brown has been jailed for four and a half years for fleecing a scientist of her money after starting a relationship with her by telling her he was a former soldier
A gambling-obsessed conman told a wealthy woman scientist he was a secret agent before fleecing her out £220,000.
Fraudster Craig Brown’s victim thought she had met the ‘perfect man’ when she was swept off her feet by her ‘confident, friendly and hugely likeable’ suitor.
But after gaining access to her bank accounts, he plundered her savings before fleeing to Spain when she reported him to the police.
After he was finally brought to justice, Brown, 41, of Broxburn, near Edinburgh, pleaded guilty to eight offences of fraud and one of theft and was jailed for four and a half years.
Gloucester Crown Court heard the pair met in Brighton in 2011 and he told her he was a former soldier working for the Secret Service.
The judge, Recorder Paul Grumbar, said of the victim: ‘She fell under your spell and how you charmed her in almost every respect.’
Brown then moved in with the woman, telling her he was due to get a £320,000 divorce settlement and would start paying his way when it came through.
Brown then asked the woman for several short term loans and promptly repaid them – building up her trust before gaining access to her finances.
He would take her out for meals and other trips, paying with ‘wads of cash’ in his wallet, then he told her he was an ‘old fashioned man’ and wanted to manage her accounts so she would be spared the trouble.
The woman, who cannot be identified, told the court: ‘He is a contemptible liar who will say or do anything to get what he wants without any thought for the impact on anyone else’
Prosecutor Tara Wolfe told the court: ‘He also persuaded her not to look at her bank account as it would spoil the surprise of what he was planning for her 40th birthday’. Brown also intercepted and hid all of the woman’s post to prevent her seeing her account balances.
Brown even asked the woman’s parents to help him raise the money for a deposit on a house, but cheques he wrote to repay the money had not been honoured.
When the woman confronted him, he pretended to have taken an overdose and was taken to hospital, but blood tests showed that he did not require treatment.
She called the police and Brown was due to be interviewed the next day, but he fled to Spain, where he spent the next four and a half years.
‘He returned to Scotland, where he had been living for about four months with his Spanish girlfriend when he was arrested by Gloucestershire police on 16 May 2017,’ Ms Wolfe said.
‘He told more lies. He said a man had been threatening to burn his step-children and harm his partner. He accused another man who was an arms disposal expert of threatening to blow him up.’
Brown was finally prosecuted at Gloucester Crown Court after he went on the run in Spain
Jailing him, Recorder Grumbar told him: ‘This lady is clearly respectable, intelligent – but she was about 40 years old and single and she thought she had found the love of her dreams. The picture that is painted is of appalling, simply appalling, and cruel abuse of her trust in you.
‘Her self-esteem destroyed, she has been humiliated. The huge sum of money which was the accumulated efforts of her hard work has been dissipated by you.
‘When it all got too hot to handle you vanished. I accept that you have a gambling problem. But it sounds as if you enjoyed the high life as well – at other people’s expense.’