Nigel Blundell - Crafty Crooks and Conmen

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TRUE CRIME FROM WHARNCLIFFE

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First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Wharncliffe True CRime
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Nigel Blundell and Susan Blackhall 2009

9781844685370

The right of Nigel Blundell and Susan Blackhall to be identified as Author
of this Work has been asserted with them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

T heyre crafty and cunning every one of them a conman who would relieve you of your hard-earned cash without a qualm.

And yet what sets apart the crooks who fill the pages of this book is the manner of their crimes. It is not so much what they do but the style in which they do it that makes them memorable.

Their exploits are, of course, reprehensible. But while it would it be utterly wrong to condone their criminal artifice, it is near-impossible to not to admire their ingenuity.

If only the crooks and conmen whose crimes are catalogued here had turned their energy and expertise to honest enterprise, most of them would have been rich and famous. In the event, most ended up outcast and infamous.

Like the phoney and philanderer John Stonehouse, a politician with a glittering career ahead of him who threw it all away for greed and the love of a beautiful woman.

Or Clifford Irving, the author who fooled publishers with the biography of a man hed never met. And Frank Abagnale, the fake pilot who conned his way into airline cockpits and into the beds of countless ladies along the way.

Joyti De-Laurey was Britains most successful female fraudster, stealing 4million from her rich employers with the excuse: Ive got an illness only diamonds can cure.

More dangerous was dodgy doctor John Romulus Brinkley, who made his mark in medicine by transplanting goats testicles onto men with the false promise that the weird operation would boost their sexual powers.

Another master of the tricksters trade was Victor Lustig, known as the Bouncing Czech, who was arguably the greatest conmen of the past century. Having sold the Eiffel Tower (twice) and gone on the run with the proceeds, he should have retired rich. Instead he carried on duping people and died in jail.

Conmen like Lustig have always relied on that human frailty, greed. Its said that a fool and his money are easily parted but a greedy fool is an even better bet for the confidence trickster. Other powerful lures laid by those on the wrong side of the law are lust, laziness or ambition.

The victims are as disparate a bunch of characters as the crooks and conmen who targeted them. But the confidence tricksters have one thing in common their exploits are remembered long after their more virtuous victims are forgotten!

CHAPTER 1

The Spy who Duped them

I t is hard to believe that anyone could allow a chance encounter with a total stranger to turn their lives into a humiliating charade of fear, exploitation and degradation. But that is exactly what happened to the victims of Robert Hendy-Freegard. The former barman met people seeking excitement in their otherwise very ordinary existences then drove them to the brink of madness.

While he was power-mad, they became powerless. As he took charge of their every waking moment, they became more and more subservient. It was make-believe in the hands of a maniac. For ten years, Robert Hendy-Freegard carried out one of the most elaborate and audacious frauds in British history; his motto: Lies have to be big to be convincing.

Like everything else about him, Robert Hendy-Freegards name was a creation. Born Robert Freegard on March 1, 1977, he added the Hendy later in life a particularly cruel testament to one of his female victims. His humble birthplace, a small village near Whitwell, in Derbyshire, could not contain Hendy-Freegard for long. He was, he felt, cut out for a more rewarding life. And alongside the rather mundane occupations of working behind bars and selling cars, that is what Hendy-Freegard found when he added conman and impostor to his CV.

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