Tory election agent avoids prison after defrauding £9k from boy who lost his mum
A former election agent for the Conservative Party who splurged thousands of pounds from a fundraiser set up to support a vulnerable teenager who’d lost his mum has been spared jail.
Tory Alexander Shayler - who has been involved in three general election campaigns - was tasked with managing donations totalling more than £17,000 raised following the sudden death of then-15-year-old Anton Roche’s mum Leila Roy. Leila, a community campaigner and Tory ex-councillor for Camden, northwest London, died from a heart condition during the Covid lockdown in February 2021. She was just 39.
Leila's pal Shayler, 33, helped set up the GoFundMe account which was used to pay for funeral costs and other expenses. The remaining balance - around £9,000 - was then due to be transferred to Anton once he turned 18 in February this year. However, just weeks before the teen’s birthday, Shayler - who was trusted to safeguard the finances - allegedly admitted he’d blown all the money on himself and would need time to pay it back.
Alexander Shayler took Anton to trips to the cinema after his mum died (Jonathan Buckmaster)Shayler, of Maidstone, Kent, was today given a 10-month jail term, suspended for two years. He was told to complete 250 hours unpaid work, 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days and pay Anton £1,000 in compensation.
The court heard Shayler had spent a large proportion of the money on alcohol. Alex Jamieson, defending, said: "He was the person that confessed. He has repaid the money and he has taken treatment and counselling. More and more of his expenses were eating into these funds and mainly that was alcohol."
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Sentencing, Judge Alexander Jacobs said: "It was your position to safeguard Anton Roche.You indicated a guilty plea at the magistrates’ court at the very first opportunity.
"Your victim to this fraud was a 16-year-old boy who had lost his mother unexpectedly. Friends, you included, joined together to raise funds for Anton Roche’s future. You were a friend of Anton’s late mother.
"£17,000 in total was raised by well-wishers and those meaning only good for Anton. On his 18th birthday, there was only £100 left. Some of the funds were used legitimately for funeral costs as well as for Anton. You told the other trustees of the fund, what had happened and you agreed to pay the money back. Not withstanding that, those other trustees felt it was a criminal matter. You fully admitted to it when the police were involved.
"Anton feels overwhelmed, scared and betrayed by what you have done. Kelly Whittaker, who was one of the other trustees, while not herself a victim, she felt responsible. Amit Shah, another involved in the crowd funding, said “I feel ashamed” - why should he feel ashamed, he has no reason to at all. Those two individuals of course should feel nothing of the sort. This was you and you alone and you accept that."
The defendant was spared jail today despite the fraud by false representation (Rights reserved)
Leila Roy was a much-loved community campaigner (Jonathan Buckmaster)The judge acknowledged Shayler experienced his own bereavement, and lost his career as a result of his actions. He added: "I have listened to and read a great deal of mitigation on your behalf. You have a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and general anxiety disorder.
"I have read the letter from your councillor and from Change Grow Live (CGL), I have read those character references, those have to be read in the context that what you did was behind everyone’s back. On your behalf, your barrister concedes that it crosses the custody threshold.
"The important point to note to me is the work that you have done with a councillor, CGL and so on, all took place before police were involved. You have done all of that in any event, not expecting or knowing that it would be a matter that would trouble the court. There are no aggravating factors, there are though mitigating factors that the court must take into account."
In August, Shayler pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by false representation, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed to the Mirror. Anton, from Belsize Park, northwest London, said the incident was a "big shock" and has left him feeling isolated, but also saddened that his late mum has been betrayed by a close friend.
Anton said at the time: “He was someone I thought I could trust. I knew my mum trusted him. The weird bit wasn’t so much the money disappearing, it was that someone who took me to the cinema and someone I’d hung out with after mum died and who I had chatted to about her had done that.
“It’s affected my trust with people in general. I take everything a lot more with a grain of salt. I struggle a lot to speak to close family and relatives and friends about important events, things to do with money and personal things a lot more because of that fear: could it be used against me? This information, will it benefit someone else?”
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The teenager added: “It’s not so much that I care he broke my trust but more that he broke my mum’s trust. I know that’s a bit silly to say but as someone who’s a friend of someone who has passed on and was in charge of looking after something for that person’s son, and that person is a child, that’s the bit that sticks with me the most. Breaking that trust with my mum, even though she’s not here to have her trust broken.”
Anton's mum Leila Roy died in February 2021 (Jonathan Buckmaster)One of Leila’s closest friends, Amit Shah, has been helping Anton since his mum died and reported what Shayler had done to police. He said: “There was a lot of public interest because the kind of people that had donated to the fund had been MPs, lords, journalists, even police officers, firefighters and charities. It wasn’t just 200 people but various organisations. So many people donate to a charity, it suddenly became clear a lot of people had been defrauded.
“Then the police started taking it very seriously and realised this was a matter of public interest.” Amit claims, on admitting he’d spent the money, Shayler handed over £1,000 in cash before paying the rest back in instalments prior to the case going to court. He said the fraudster told him he had been suffering with his mental health, and the money had in part gone on alcohol.
However, Amit says during this period Shayler was posting on Facebook about going on holiday and splashing out on Tom Jones concert tickets. He said it “sickens” him to think someone would allegedly use mental health as an excuse for such a crime. Anton said he has not received an apology from Shayler and does not plan to go to court for his sentencing. Instead he is focusing on his education and grieving for his mum. He has started at Burbeck University, where he is studying data finance and computing, while supporting himself with a night job at Waitrose.
Anton, now 18, lives alone in the flat he previously shared with his mum (Jonathan Buckmaster)Anton said he would rather just try to forget what happened. “It’s one of those things, I’m not great at accepting things in general and just hearing about it and having previous experiences of having family court and things, I’m not ready to go through that,” he said.
Anton is still living in the flat he was raised in by single mum Leila. His parents separated around the time he was born. Following her death, Anton’s dad moved in with him as his sole guardian until he turned 18. The teenager is matter of fact about the initial loss of the money, and it hasn’t perturbed him. “You think you have a safety net in case things go wrong and then you don’t,” he said.
Anton had to call the ambulance when his mum suddenly fell ill around lunchtime on Friday, February 26, 2021, while they were both at home. He said: “She asked me to call an ambulance for her because she was feeling unwell. I remember my first reaction - because we were doing online lessons - was that my teacher was going to have a go at me for missing two classes in a row. But then I realised the seriousness of the situation.
“She was unwell but a bit reluctant to go with the paramedics. I was there with her. It was a lot to deal with for a 15 year old,” he explained. Anton recalls calling 999 around 1pm and being taken to the hospital in a police car because “I wasn’t old enough to go in the ambulance”. He described his mum as looking unwell in the flat but “alright” - though he never saw her alive again.
His dad joined him in the hospital waiting room and Leila died around 4pm. “I was aware she was unwell, being brought to a hospital in an ambulance generally isn’t a good thing,” he said before laughing and adding: “Sorry, I use laughing as my coping mechanism. I guess there was a naive optimism that everything was going to be fine. It was just life shattering.”
Leila had suffered with a multitude of heart issues for years, often leaving her bedbound, something which her son has now inherited, but he hopes to a lesser extent. He spoke to the Mirror after going for an MRI. Around two years before his mum died, Anton started experiencing “similar cardiac episodes that she had when she was my age”.
Shayler has been involved in multiple general election campaigns (Getty Images)
Shayler (left) outside court last month (Amit Shah)He added: “It’s a worry. My heart rate and blood pressure tends to drop pretty dramatically. It’s sort of been the lightheadedness, becoming very pale and feeling like my legs are giving out. I have a heart monitor to track heart rate, which is very scary.” Anton is currently looking for a flatmate to help support him with bills. He can’t help but feel he’s had to grow up a little too fast.
“There’s a lot of things in retrospect that I would have loved to have done in the last two years at school…exam years, while trying to juggle everything else. It’s been non-stop adult things, I haven’t had the chance to be a teenager a lot.”
In a profile for Shayler’s current job, it says: “Alexander has experience in Europe and the Caribbean and has 10 years of experience in party-political campaigning. Alexander is a former Election Agent for the Conservative Party. He has worked in multiple leadership elections, three general elections and managed candidates across the spectrum of national and local government.”
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