Colchester financial adviser conned clients out of £1.17m

David Stevens, 67, known as Danny, conned 16 of his clients out of their savings between 2010 and 2017, by claiming he was operating a collective investment fund offering shortterm loans to businesses.

Stevens, of Colchester, had met most of his victims having previously offered them legitimate financial advice or mortgage services from his firm David Charles Financial Services, in Ingatestone.

He told them the club would make loans of no more than £50,000 to small companies, with an average interest rate of 12 per cent.

Stevens would assure his victims that he could personally cover the cost if a business were to default on the loan.

In reality, the money was being used to fund Stevens’ “lifestyle and businesses”, prosecutor James Norman told Southwark Crown Court.

“In addition, some of the money was used to make interest payments, or what appeared to be interest payments, to some of the victims, to prevent the fraud from being uncovered,” Mr Norman said.

“That is the Ponzi method.”

“He spent the money propping up businesses of his own and funding his own lifestyle – not least his substantial gambling habit.”

One victim lost nearly £560,000 from the scam, while the oldest victim, an 84-yearold woman, lost her entire £58,000 life savings.

The court heard that despite filing for bankruptcy over the summer of 2015, Stevens continued to recruit new members to his club.

The defendant initially denied 15 counts of fraud by false representation and one charge of theft relating to his final victim, from whom he took £78,000.

But he changed his plea to guilty on October 15 this year, three days before he was due to stand trial.

Jailing Stevens for five years and nine months, Judge Michael Hopmeier said: “Each victim has lost different sums and to different extents are feeling a mixture of anger, frustration, that they have been let down and that this is a breach of trust.”