Infamous conman ‘tried to kill French police with car’
ONE of Britain’s most notorious fraudsters who features in a Netflix documentary is on the run in France after the alleged attempted murder of a policeman.
Robert Hendy-Freegard, nicknamed ‘the puppet master’ for the control he exercises over his victims, deliberately drove into two officers while fleeing his hideaway, judicial sources said last night.
One suffered serious facial wounds including ‘ multiple fractures’ and remains in hospital, while the other was treated for lesser injuries.
A major police operation was under way yesterday afternoon to track down the fugitive, with all the area’s soldiers and a helicopter deployed in the chase.
Hendy-Freegard, 51, was jailed in 2005 for kidnap by fraud, theft and obtaining money by deception after convincing seven women and one man that he was an MI5 agent protecting them from the IRA.
He cut them off from their friends and relatives and, in some cases, fleeced them, stealing a total of £1million. Two years later his kidnap convictions were overturned and he was out of prison in 2009. Among his victims was Maria Hendy, whom he met in a pub in Newport, Shropshire, in 1992 when she was a student.
She spent eight years with him, giving birth to their two daughters. He forced her to live in a cramped flat in Sheffield, controlling her every move as he treated himself to expensive cars, a Rolex watch and handmade suits and shoes. She eventually left him in 2001.
He met his current partner, Sandra Clifton, 49, a dog breeder, in 2012 on a dating app, where he went by the name David Hendy. He began posing as a dog breeder himself and showed off his beagles at the Crufts dog show, but disappeared in 2015 when his true identity became known.
Mrs Clifton’s children, Jake, 25, and Sophie, 28, allege that HendyFreegard has convinced their mother he is a secret agent and is coercively controlling her.
They said in the Netflix documentary – The Puppet Master: Hunting The Ultimate Conman – that they had not seen their mother since 2014. Her location was unknown for years until the Daily Mail found her walking her dogs in a hamlet in central France in March.
It is understood two officers arrived at the property yesterday to check up on a beagle-breeding business Hendy-Freegard was running with Mrs Clifton.
French officials said Hendy-Freegard, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, reacted by accelerating his Audi A3 at them. A judicial source said: ‘An investigation has been opened for the attempted murder of a person holding public authority. The person responsible is being searched for.’
In March, French officials issued an order for Hendy-Freegard and Mrs Clifton to shut down their dog breeding business. Police said anyone who spots him should call the authorities.
Mrs Clifton, from Wokingham, Berkshire, is said by locals to be leading a hermetic existence in the ramshackle, semi-detached house, with seemingly strictly controlled access to the outside world. Officials said she lives in ‘fear’, with no car or identity papers, and they have concerns for her welfare.
Neighbours said she had been living in the hamlet since June 2015, but they only realised who she was after the Netflix documentary was released in January.
Hendy- Freegard was finally arrested in 2003 in a joint £2.5 million operation with the FBI, after his final victim, solicitor Caroline Cowper, went to police after losing £50,000 in savings and discovering the existence of his other victims.
By then, some of them were so in his thrall that they believed the police were either IRA assassins or MI5 agents, sent to test their resilience.
‘Facial wounds and multiple fractures’