A smooth-talking conman managed to convince his friends, family and his own wife into investing £179,000 into bogus businesses and fake insurance schemes.
Robert Watkinson, 61, claimed he was a successful businessman and promised high-value returns on the investments he sought. The slick conman had a flat in Southport and a cottage in the Ribble Valley, and flashed his wealth on the golf course and splashed his cash on expensive rounds in the village pub.
Despite his seemingly luxurious lifestyle, Watkinson was really a penniless gambling addict with no qualifications who was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" Preston Crown Court heard. For two years between 2015 and 2017, Robert Smith, prosecuting, said Watkinson presented himself as a "charismatic, likeable and successful individual", Lancs Live reports.
READ MORE: Kidnapper crawled streets in Audi looking for woman to attack
He boasted about his professional expertise in various fields including taxi insurance, business investment and personal injury litigation. He and his wife Yvonne split their time between their main residence in Southport and the cottage in Wiswell, which they used as a weekend retreat.
Mr Smith told the court: “Such was Robert Watkinson’s apparent credibility and success, he was able to persuade a number of individuals to invest money, in support of business ventures or highly lucrative taxi insurance."
But beneath the facade, Watkinson’s business ventures were a sham, the Southport flat was rented and the Wiswell cottage was owned by his wife. Without her knowledge, Watkinson forged her signature to secure three loans against her Ribble Valley home, the court heard.
Over two years, the conman convinced seven people to invest a total of £189,000 in his ‘businesses’, claiming he had a wealthy investor lined up to repay the loans. One man, who entrusted Watkinson to be best man at his wedding, was cheated out of £30,000 after releasing equity from his home.
When he asked Watkinson for a copy of the loan agreement, the defendant said he would get ‘the girls in the office’ to sort it out. He had no office and no female employees, the court heard.
When investors pursued Watkinson for the money they were owed, he wrote cheques from his business account, registered to Polaris Financial Management, which bounced. Throughout the course of Watkinson’s business dealings, the account balance remained at zero, Mr Smith added.
In 2017, Watkinson’s lies came to light when his wife noticed he was working from home and owed money to various people.
Mr Smith said: “Yvonne Watkinson never really understood what her husband did for a job. She had herself allowed the defendant to borrow a lot of her savings over the years. In April 2017 the defendant confessed to his wife that a £50,000 loan had been taken out using her cottage as collateral. Yvonne Watkinson was devastated.
“The defendant admitted to her that he had forged her signature on the Legal Charge. She then became aware that he had arranged two other loan agreements and that the defendant admitted he had forged his wife’s signature on each of them.”
On November 17 2017, Watkinson was arrested and said he worked as a sole trader in a claims management company, Airmar. He said he had recently set up Polaris and registered himself as a director, but the company had never traded.
He confessed to using the money to “pay Peter and Paul” and said he had needed it to fund his lifestyle with his wife. He admitted forging his wife’s signature on the loan agreements.
Watkinson, of Dickson Road, Blackpool, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, totalling £110,000 and four counts of theft totalling £79,000. He appeared at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced.
Mark Stuart, defending, said Watkinson had been gainfully employed until his 50s but had been unable to work since through no fault of his own". He was trying to live a lifestyle he couldn’t afford and tried to trade his way out of it, he said.
Recorder Andrew Nuttall, sentencing, said: “You have committed breath-taking offences of dishonesty against people who trusted you - including your ex-wife. You actually forged her signature and used her cottage as collateral. You had no authority to use that as a means of security. Your betrayal of her was so bad she had to call the police herself. She was devastated. There are numerous victims in this case who have been left devastated by your betrayal - and that is the word: betrayal. These were wicked deceptions and thefts.”
He sentenced Watkinson to three years in prison.
