GP ‘hired hitman to kill pension adviser over £300,000 fine’

A RETIRED GP ordered the contract killing of his financial adviser on the dark web because he blamed the banker for losing £300,000 from his pension, a court heard.

David Crichton is accused of accessing the Bulgarian website ‘Chechen mob’ where he selected an order to ‘kill the bastard’ costing £3,800 to be paid in the virtual currency bitcoin.

The 64-year-old, from Bournemouth, is on trial charged with attempting to solicit the murder of Andrew Bolden in February last year after a ‘five-year vendetta’.

Prosecutor Simon Jones said Crichton’s actions were discovered by National Crime Agency officers who had been monitoring a dark web page called Crime Bay by Chechen Mob.

Working with officers in Bulgaria, they found the order made for a hitman to kill Mr Bolden.

Mr Jones said the defendant used a special browser on his computer and created an account before he chose the option to ‘kill the bastard’. Other options included ‘set his car on fire’ and ‘set his house on fire’.

‘The steps he took were very clearly an attempt to solicit, ask for, request, seek a murder,’ said Mr Jones.

‘The National Crime Agency were investigating the Chechen Mob website on the dark web.

‘The website advertised hitmen for hire. The dark web is similar to the regular web but websites are hidden from regular users and requires specific software to access it. The Chechen Mob website works similar to a bulletin David Crichton: Lost £300,000 board where a user fills out details of the target and hitmen apply for the contract.’

Crichton set up the account under the name Potterman, with the password browncow, in February 2017, hours after speaking to Alleged target: Andrew Bolden Mr Bolden on the phone, Winchester Crown Court heard.

The jury was told Crichton ordered the hit on the website ten days later and also later made eight more searches for hitmen for hire in the UK. Crichton had met Mr Bolden when he was running a seminar in Bournemouth in 2011 on NHS pensions.

The advisor for Edinburgh-based private bank Brown Shipley gave the GP paid-for advice on how to invest his £1.8 million pension.

But, the court heard, Crichton missed certain deadlines and incurred a tax penalty of £300,000.

‘Other bad decisions’

Mr Jones said Crichton complained to the financial regulator but Mr Bolden was found to have given correct advice.

The prosecutor said the GP sent hundreds of emails before his address was blocked and then a text message to the advisor, suggesting his own life was at risk.

Mr Jones said Crichton told police in interviews that he had been ‘drunk and feeling suicidal’ when he accessed the dark web site. He had become obsessed with hitmen but had ‘thought it was a game and it wasn’t real’.

Crichton claimed he thought the hitman site looked unprofessional and he had only put Mr Bolden’s name in to see if it made him feel better.

The GP also said he had made ‘other bad financial decisions’ and ‘probably lost £1million’.

He told detectives he spent 12 hours per day on the web and that suicide had been ‘at the centre’ of his thoughts for the five years leading up to his arrest last year.

Crichton is also accused of ending malicious communications with the aim of making Mr Bolden fear the GP would commit suicide. He denies the charges and the trial continues.