Bogus financial advisor from Keighley jailed over £900,000 fraud

A bogus financial advisor who defrauded vulnerable people out of nearly £900,000 to fund his gambling addiction has been jailed for more than five years.

Sentencing Peter Grant Holbrook at Bradford Crown Court, Recorder Richard Thyne said he selected his victims "because they were elderly or because at the time you chose to prey on them they were at their most vulnerable – having suffered the loss of a loved one."

Described as "predatory" by families of his victims Holbrook, 75, of Crossfield Close, Oxenhope, Keighley, was prosecuted following an investigation by West Yorkshire Trading Standards Service.

It followed numerous complaints about his working practices, in which victims were led to believe that he was carefully investing their money and handling their financial affairs with their best interests at the forefront of what he was doing.

Instead he used it to fund his online gambling habit and pay for a foreign holiday.

After initially denying the charges against him and describing one of the families involved as "spiteful", Holbrook admitted his guilt in a third interview.

He admitted defrauding £384,000 from one victim and £231,000 from another.

In total his nine victims lost almost £900,000. Some of them have since died.

Holbrook began his offending in 2011. Although he had a background in finance, he had no legal qualifications to write wills or deal with people’s estates.

He befriended people who were vulnerable, either through being elderly or bereaved.

While arranging probate for a client, he offered to invest a substantial amount of the family member's savings and then ignored requests to withdraw the investments. He forged letters from banks to explain delays in returning money.

He told one widow he was consolidating her late husband's money when he was actually using it to fulfil his online gambling addiction.

He took more money from another family and undersold their home through an auction site.

One victim was befriended and persuaded to invest her savings in Holbrook's "client account". It was, in fact, his own personal bank account.

Another recently widowed victim asked Holbrook for a copy of her and her late husband's will. Holbrook then persuaded the family to use him for probate and, over a period of time, systematically took a vast amount of money to fund his gambling addiction. None of the money was ever returned.

When one family threatened to involve the police, Holbrook convinced someone to impersonate a police officer and telephone them to advise that their concerns about the missing money was not a police matter.

In a police interview Holbrook boasted of being a successful professional gambler who made £100,000 a year. He said he kept up his "job" helping families with their wills because he "liked to help people".

As well as gambling much of the money away, Holbrook spent some of it on a holiday to the Netherlands and Belgium.

Victim impact statements read out in court referred to Holbrook and his behaviour as "absolutely sickening", "deliberate and callous", "predatory and premeditated", and "a heinous crime".

Holbrook’s defence told the court that before these incidents he had lived a crime-free life, and had even helped set up a table tennis club in Keighley.

John Batchelor, defending, said the offending had put great strain on his family.

The betting companies Holbrook had used had been contacted by the courts to see if any of the money could be recovered. Although three companies were cooperating with requests, others had been less forthcoming.

Recorder Thyne said: "This offending caused intolerable anxiety and affected the health of those concerned. It caused some victims to blame themselves for what happened, when all they had done had put faith in your well-practiced and convincing lies."

He acknowledged a prison sentence would have a "significant impact" on Holbrook’s wife, but said his crimes were so serious a custodial sentence was needed.

He added: "You had numerous opportunities to stop this, but you didn’t. You thought only of yourself and not of anyone else."

Holbrook was jailed for five years and three months. He will have to serve at least half his sentence in custody.

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