14 September 2023 , 08:32
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Elderly folk trusted silver-haired and bespectacled Yorkshireman Peter Holbrook with their savings, not least because he was as old as them – older in some cases.
But unknown to them, the 75-year-old was stealing their money to fund his gambling habit.
This week he was jailed for five years and three months after pleading guilty to defrauding nine victims out of a total of almost £850,000 between 2011 and 2021.
Bradford crown court heard that he preyed on the recently bereaved, offering a will-writing and investment service, despite having no relevant qualifications.
Angus MacDonald, prosecuting on behalf of West Yorkshire Trading Standards, said: “He would befriend the victims before offering to handle their probate.”
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One victim was Joan Dobson who lost £384,303 to the crook. She needed financial help when her husband Herbert died in 2020 and she has now died herself.
Joan DobsonIn a victim impact statement she described how learning the truth about the adviser she had trusted for years was “shocking and devastating”.
Her daughter described how her mother blamed herself for being defrauded, tragically calling herself “a stupid old woman”.
In another case, Holbrook prepared the wills of Barbara Middleton and her husband Leslie, and when he died in 2017 the defendant met with the grieving widow and her two daughters to organise the probate.
He had told Barbara that she was now a "very wealthy woman" and that he would invest the money. They trusted him.
But he lost the money gambling or used it to repay other victims.
In a victim impact statement Barbara stated she will never get over what the defendant had done and she now has no inheritance to pass on to her children.
Recorder Richard Thyne KC told Holbrook that he had “taken away people’s financial security at a time when they were vulnerable and most needed it”.
"You took away hard-earned money that parents had saved to give to their children upon their death. Plans for retirement were overturned and homes were sold to pay for the cost of care that should have come from people's savings.”
In mitigation the court heard that the cheat from Oxenhope, West Yorks, had admitted in a written statement: “My actions are disgraceful, wrong, and the worst is that I have betrayed these decent, nice people.”
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After the case Linda Davis, West Yorkshire Trading Standards manager, said: “This was substantial fraud, with many victims losing their life savings to someone they trusted with their money.
"Holbrook built relationships with them to enable him to persuade them to let him manage their financial affairs, whilst all the time using their money to fund his gambling habit.
"The sentence today reflects the severity of his offending and the impact on victims. His actions have caused immense stress and worry to those victims and their families, who have lost significant sums in life savings.’