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‘Charming’ advisor jailed for eight years for stealing from clients
Wednesday 12th May 2010Following a marathon five year investigation by police, financial advisor Michael Mawdsley has been sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing £1.6 million from 200 clients.
Chester Crown Court heard how over a 13 year period the 62 year-old advisor charmed ill and elderly pensioners, promising that they would get great returns if they invested their savings with him.
However, police discovered that Mawdsley had been helping himself to enormous commissions, which funded a lavish lifestyle of expensive clothes, fancy restaurants, and golf and tennis club memberships.
Mr Mawdsley worked at an investment company and would prey on the recently retired in his area of Cheshire, inviting them to seminars and wooing them into signing life assurance policies and other investments falsely labelled “low risk”.
For some clients, he even offered equity release on their homes, which got them into even graver financial trouble.
After his clients lost huge sums of money and began to question why they never received documentation relating to their investments, the police were called in.
In 2005 Cheshire police found that the crooked advisor had been faking policy documents, passports and evidence of unsuitable investments.
It was also found that the advisor was not even FSA-authorised to give financial advice.
The court also heard the devastating effect Mawdsley’s actions had on his victims. Some former clients have been forced to come out of retirement and take on jobs to make ends meet, after losing their life savings. One 88 year-old man lost his entire life savings of £122,000, whilst another had a stroke when he realised the deception.
82 year-old victim, Irene Cooke, said outside the court: “He came round in a beautiful car, had dinner at the best hotels and got his teeth capped for £6,000. Yet we have lost virtually everything. He is a wicked man and I hate the sight of him.”
Mawdsley admitted 23 charges of fraud, deception and false accounting, revealing that most of the money he had stolen had been frittered away.
Sentencing him, Judge Roger Dutton said: “Seldom can a crown court have heard of such rank and dreadful dishonesty with so many elderly retired victims systematically milked of their life savings by you.
“Your actions were despicable and disgusting and the story unfolded in this court is of truly shocking proportions.”
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