Victims 'destroyed' by bank thief

IOU thief is sentenced

People who lost large sums after a former financial consultant stole £10m from 85 investors and the Halifax Bank say their lives have been "destroyed".

Graham Price, 58, was jailed for 12 years on Tuesday at Swansea Crown Court after admitting 43 charges of theft.

Price stole cash from the bank and hundreds of investors while working at the Gowerton office, near Swansea.

Jennifer Ellis, 51, from Gower, who lost her £120,000 life savings, said "no one suspected a thing".

'Borrowed £7m'

The court heard that Price, a heavy gambler who began stealing from the bank and customers in January 2001, was only caught when an unannounced audit was carried out in November 2004.

He had left a scrap of paper in the empty branch safe which read: "I have borrowed £7m from the Halifax".

Graham Price stole money from 85 clients

Price, of Llansamlet, Swansea, has admitted 43 charges of theft and asked for a further 263 offences to be taken into account.

Price ran a counter service for the Halifax Bank at Gowerton and operated his own separate investment firm from the same office.

Many of the people who Price stole from have not received their money back.

But the Halifax has said it is not responsible for those who invested with Price in a personal capacity.

Mrs Ellis, from Penclawdd, Gower, a former employee of Price whom she had known for 20 years, said: "I didn't hand over all my money in one go, it was a gradual thing.

'Worst criminals'

"But he would say, 'if you put £5,000 in this I will double it in six months' - and he did.

"He just convinced us completely about what we were buying into. He convinced 85 people and no one suspected a thing.

Price worked at the Halifax Bank in Gowerton

"I worked with him for three years, although I left before all this came out.

"They say that the worst criminals are respectable and quiet people and that was certainly true in his case."

Mrs Ellis had retired but has been forced to return to work since losing the money.

Another victim, Suzie Mills, 58, of Honiton, Devon, invested £500,000 with Price after promises of big returns.

She now lives in a rented flat and struggles to pay her bills after being forced to find low paid work in a nursing home.

'No doubt'

She said: "I have been very near to cracking up completely. I do not know how I have got through it.

"My whole life has totally and utterly been destroyed.

"When you wake up afraid every day it has to have an effect on your health."

She added: "I had heard about Graham Price through friends and I knew their standard of living had improved. I had no doubt about the investment."

Many of the 85 investors with Price were also Halifax Bank customers whose accounts received interest payments supposedly from their investments.

Victims' group

When an internal bank inquiry established the vast majority of payments were bogus, balances were returned to zero to reflect that reality.

But some investors said this made them feel victimised for a second time, losing cash in their Halifax accounts as well as their investments.

A victims' group has now been set up with a view to making a legal challenge against the Halifax Bank in an attempt to recover some of the money they say they have lost.

But the bank has stressed that it was also a victim and acted only to clear up discrepancies left by Price's fraud.

It claims that cash apparently paid into the Halifax accounts of Price's victims was in fact never credited to them at all.

In two cases, victims had removed money which did not exist and they had since been contacted and asked to pay it back.

A Halifax statement released on Monday said: "As well as defrauding a number of his own clients, Mr Price stole a considerable amount of money from Halifax.

"Both Halifax and Mr Price's private clients are victims of his fraud.

"All investments made with Mr Price were paid either directly in to his personal bank account or by cheque payable to him.

"Mr Price's clients deposited no money with Halifax in connection with these 'investment accounts'."