Swindon 'romance fraudster' manipulated women out of £200k

A 'romance fraudster' who manipulated three women out of more than £200,000 has pleaded guilty in court.

Sajad Hussain admitted to five counts of fraud over a seven-year period at a hearing at Swindon Crown Court on Monday (17 April).

The offences took place between 2013 and 2020 when Hussain met three different women on online dating sites.

All three knew him by a false name, with the relationships overlapping.

Hussain tricked the women into believing they were in a genuine relationship with him and began asking for increasingly substantial sums of money, promising to pay the victims back.

He claimed these were to cover him for issues such as needing cash for the damage he had caused to a friend’s car and that he would get beaten up unless he paid, being behind on his rent, and that he needed money to visit his ill father.

Hussain took advantage of the victim’s generosity, eventually manipulating the three women out of a total of £204,322, plus a number of pieces of highly sentimental family jewellery.

An investigation was started after Hussain was reported to Wiltshire Police by one of the victims, and he was arrested in October 2020.

The investigation revealed a substantial gambling habit, with £135,000 leaving his bank account in relation to online gambling during the same period.

Hussain was subsequently charged under the Fraud Act 2006 for dishonestly making false representations to the victims in order to gain money for himself.

He was set to plead not guilty ahead of a trial on Monday but changed his plea. He is due to be sentenced on June 8.

One of Hussain's victims who wanted to remain anonymous said: “Since meeting this man, my life hasn’t been the same. I thought I’d found someone who I could trust and spend my life with, but instead, I found someone who didn’t care about me.

“I trusted him and only handed money and jewellery over in the belief that I would be getting it back in the next few weeks. Those weeks never came and instead turned into months and years. I never saw my family’s precious jewellery again.

“I think the worst part in all this was when he kept on asking me for money. I would say no, and he would make me feel guilty for not helping him.

“I really don’t want this to happen to anyone else out there. I didn’t know this was a crime. Instead, I felt ashamed of speaking up in case I would get into trouble, or I wouldn’t be believed.

“I only ever wanted to be with someone.”

The second victim, who refers to Hussain as ‘Sanj’, said: “My relationships with both family and friends have deteriorated significantly as a result of Sanj’s actions.

“I find it extremely difficult to trust people now and have lost all feelings of confidence and self-worth.

“During our ‘relationship,’ I became really stressed by the pressure Sanj put me under. I can see now that he deliberately isolated me.

“I have panic attacks in the day also which affects my work. They manifest as random bursts of panic and tears. It is exhausting, meaning I struggle to function and concentrate.

“I feel that I am making it by the skin of my teeth, and it feels utterly unsustainable.

“Writing this Victim Personal Statement has been hugely difficult for me. Nevertheless, I think it is important that the court fully understands what has happened to me and I tell myself that this will serve a purpose if it stops Sanj abusing someone else.

"I don’t want anyone else to feel this way.”

Investigating officer DC Rachael Fairbairn said: “This is a heinous crime where Hussain has taken advantage of three women, most likely to fund his gambling habit.

“He created a false picture of himself as someone trustworthy and looking for a family and children in order to convince the victims to give him money.

“His lies gradually became more extreme, lying about his father’s severe skiing injury – despite the fact his real father had already sadly died – or that his life was in danger, manipulating the emotions of his victims.

“His actions finally caught up with him due to the bravery of the victims coming forward to report him, and I’d like to commend all three victims for their strength of character.

“They reported it and supported the investigation, not with the aim of getting their money back, but in order to protect other women from people like him.

“The victims weren’t aware of one another until the latter stages of the investigation but the accounts each provided were remarkably similar.”