Ex-banker who duped his wife over house deal gets 14 months
A FORMER bank manager who forged his wife’s signature to secretly hand over their family home to a millionaire butcher has been jailed.
Businessman Simon Howie had lent cash to his financial director, David Cowper, a court was told.
But retired Royal Bank of Scotland manager, Cowper, 73, had not told his wife, Helen, he was in serious debt.
It was only when she made plans to draw up her will that she discovered her husband had signed over the Dundee property to Mr Howie.
It emerged Cowper had forged his wife’s signature to secretly hand over their £280,000 home to pay off his debts to Mr Howie. Yesterday, he was jailed for 14 months following a hearing at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael said: ‘This fraud involved you forging your wife’s signature in a move that transferred ownership of your half-share and your wife’s half-share of the family home to another person without her knowledge or consent.
‘This was a gross breach of trust towards your wife. There is no alternative to a custodial sentence in order to express society’s disapproval of your actions.’
Solicitor Jim Laverty, defending, said Cowper had been afraid to tell his wife how much cash he owed to Mr Howie. He accused Mr Howie of luring Cowper, who worked as his financial director, into a ‘trap’ by continuing to give him cash when he already owed a six-figure sum.
The court was told Mr Howie, who got £ 140,000 f rom the house sale, was still owed more than £50,000. He had been acting as a money lender to cover up debts run up by his financial director. But Cowper had not told his wife and she had no idea that he was secretly selling their home out from under her. It was only when Mrs Cowper made plans to draw up her will that she discovered her husband’s plot. Fiscal depute Marie Irvine told Dundee Sheriff Court Cowper and his wife had lived at their home for 20 years and he was a f ormer RBS manager. She said: ‘He took early retirement and worked for Simon Howie as a financial director.
‘In 2007 he approached Mr Howie asking to borrow money to purchase a house for his daughter.
‘He borrowed £29,000 initially and over the next few years he borrowed more money and repaid £10,102.02.
‘In November 2014, Mr Howie put pressure on the accused to repay the debt and he agreed to transfer the title deeds of his home. Mr Howie agreed to let them stay in the house for a period until it was sold and any profit would be distributed to him.’
Documentation was sent to Mr Howie’s solicitor and purported to show the signatures of Mr and Mrs Cowper along with that of a third party.
The Land Register was updated to show the house had passed into Mr Howie’s ownership.
It was more than a year later that Mrs Cowper uncovered her husband’s deception.
Cowper, of Dundee, admitted transferring the title deeds of the property in Dundee to settle a £193,338 debt owed to Simon Howie. He admitted uttering as genuine a letter of waiver and disposition on which he forged his wife’s name and presented it to Mr Howie’s solicitor Bruce Renfrew, at Thorntons in Perth.
Mr Howie said: ‘David Cowper... approached me as a friend and employer for a loan to support his children in order to help them onto the property ladder.
‘He pleaded for the support on the basis he and his wife would downsize and sell their property in the coming years.
‘The final loan was given to repay their mortgage in full, this was paid to their mortgage lender and David was due to put the property on the market.
‘When this did not happen, and in light of the sums involved, he was asked to give some collateral against his loans.
‘He duly did this by way of signing over his house as an interim measure and by way of a signed agreement he and his wife were fully entitled to the balance of the proceeds once it was sold.
‘Subsequently it became apparent that he had forged his wife’s ( witnessed) signature. I am shocked at the outcome and there are certainly no winners from something that began as a genuine act of friendship.’
‘I am shocked at the outcome’