WHAT A CHEEK!
Thief stole £100k from Downton actress’s family ... and now she’s brazenly after YOUR money too
A WOMAN jailed for stealing money to renovate her lighthouse is now appealing for the public to donate money to help finish the project.
Brenda Ford-Sagers and her husband Robert bought historic Eilean Glas lighthouse on the remote Hebridean island of Scalpay – but were sent to prison for stealing more than £100,000.
Their victim was English actress Dame Harriet Walter, hailed for her performances of Shakespeare, roles in TV’s Downton Abbey and the Jane Austen film Sense and Sensibility.
Now, a decade after serving her jail term, Mrs Ford-Sagers has launched a public appeal for tens of thousands of pounds to help restore the building.
Despite admitting her crime in court, she maintains that both she and her husband were innocent – and insists the new project is all above board.
Eilean Glas lighthouse guided shipping on the east coast of the Isle of Scalpay, off Harris, between 1789 and 1824.
The short, stone tower is dwarfed by a slightly more modern red-andwhite lighthouse owned by the Northern Lighthouse Board which still shines to this day.
The older tower and buildings were bought by Mrs Ford-Sagers in 1984 to run a tea-room and selfcatering business. But by the mid1990s the mortgage was in arrears and there were problems supplying water to the property. In 1996, Mrs Ford-Sagers started the Friends of Eilean Glas Trust to raise funds. Barred from being a trustee because she owned the property, she used a false name and, when the deception was discovered, the trust was struck off the charity register. Mr FordSagers, a financial adviser with access to the estate of Dame Harriet’s father Roderick Walter, was convicted of putting money from it into the lighthouse trust and other projects.
He took £5,000 to buy premium bonds and £20,000 to buy shares, whilst £19,000 was used to buy a council house for his mother.
His wife admitted using £50,000 to pay off the lighthouse’s mortgage, as well as £8,500 for legal costs and £500 towards their son’s school fees.
In court Charles Parry, for Mrs Ford-Sagers, said: ‘In her dreams, she hoped all would be well, that she could restore the lighthouse. Her life is now in ruins, her dreams shattered.’
Sentencing the couple to three years in jail, Judge John Boggis said: ‘These affairs are so serious that only a custodial sentence is appropriate.’
But last week Mrs Ford-Sagers, 73, would not admit any wrongdoing, saying: ‘We would be insane to do that. It all went on for horrible years, but in the end we were told that the best thing we could do was to plead guilty and it would all go away. That was the biggest mistake of my whole life. It’s a ghastly episode and it was a long time ago. It was utterly horrible. But in the end it was sorted out – she was paid.’
The new online fundraising campaign is being fronted by Mrs Ford-Sagers’s son Theo, 28, who played no part in his parents’ crime. A Cambridge music graduate who gave up working as a motoring journalist to devote his time to the project, he says: ‘It’s worth stressing that we don’t own the lighthouse.
‘We’re trustees of the trust which owns it. The total restoration will
‘In her dreams, she had hoped all would be well’
‘There’s not a lot of trust in these trusts’
require hundreds of thousands of pounds.’
He adds: ‘My earliest memories are of Eilean Glas. This is a uniquely beautiful place and I believe the work we can do here will have a real positive impact for thousands of people. What would I say to anyone who is still concerned by the old legal battles? I’d just want to assure them that this project is all about community.’
But some locals are less enthusiastic. One said: ‘They are just asking for money. The lighthouse looks like squatters have been in it. Everybody’s very wary of trying to help them. There’s not a lot of trust in these trusts.’