Bank boss who stole £ 10m and left an IOU gets 12 years
A BANK manager who stole more than £10million to fuel his gambling addiction was jailed for 12 years yesterday. Graham Price’s fraud against dozens of victims, including friends and neighbours, was described by a judge as a breach of trust of ‘the grossest nature’.
Price, 58, who ran a Halifax branch in Gowerton, Swansea, took almost £ 3.5million from 84 investors and £7million from the bank over four years. He placed around £ 7million of bets with Internet bookmakers, bought shares in racehorses worth £ 250,000 and paid £ 1,770,000 to racing tipsters.
Investors lost redundancy payouts, inheritances, cash saved for their children and grandchildren and money from the sale of homes and businesses.
The married father of two told them they were investing in leaseholds on buildings and promised returns of up to 40 per cent a year. But he pocketed the cash then stole from the branch safe to make quarterly payments to investors. Many of Price’s victims face further hardship as the Halifax is demanding the return of £1.8million paid to them by Price in fake interest payments.
Jennifer Ellis, 52, was a cashier at Price’s branch when she and her technician husband, John, invested £120,000.
The mother of two hoped to retire on the income from the investment but has been forced to return to work as a secretary.
Mrs Ellis’s 86-year- old aunt also lost £165,000 from the sale of her house which she invested to pay her nursing home fees.
‘ We are satisfied with the sentence but it does not compensate us for the financial ruin he has caused and the anxiety we face because of the demands from the Halifax,’ said Mrs Ellis. ‘We are the victims in this case.’
Barry and Susie Mills lost more than £ 320,000 from selling their guest house in Teignmouth, Devon.
Mrs Mills, a 56-year- old spiritual healer, planned to cash in the investment and open her own healing centre but lost everything when Price was arrested.
‘This has left my life absolutely devastated and my dreams in tatters,’ said Mrs Mills, now separated from her husband and living in a rented flat in Honiton, Devon.
Sentencing Price at Swansea Crown Court, Judge John Diehl said: ‘ Words are inadequate to reflect the devastating effect of your deceit and dishonesty. Many investors counted themselves as personal friends of yours.’ An audit by the Halifax in November 2003 failed to uncover the scam. But a year later an auditor found an IOU note in the branch’s empty safe bearing Price’s signature, which read: ‘ I have borrowed £7million from the Halifax.’
Price, a former estate agent, began working as a Halifax agent in 1996 and operated as an independent financial adviser from a backroom at the branch.
He admitted 24 charges of theft, 19 charges of deception and asked for 263 other offences to be taken into consideration. Price used some of the money he stole between January 2001 and November last year to buy Mercedes cars for himself and his wife Jennifer, 55.
He gave premium bonds worth a total of £ 85,000 to his wife, his daughter Victoria, 27, and 32-yearold son Julian. His son also got £ 500,000 of shares and had £1.25million put into his account.
Price told detectives he believed he could win the money back. He said after his arrest last year: ‘ I was getting to the point where I could have paid everything back.’