High-life trio jailed for £10m swindle

John Hirst, 61, of Millroyd Mill, Huddersfield Road, Brighouse, and his 70-year-old financial adviser Richard Pollett made millions from targeting vulnerable elderly people and families who had recently moved to the Spanish island in a so-called Ponzi scheme, similar to the £41bn fraud for which United States financier Bernard Madoff was jailed for 150 years in 2009.

It is estimated at least 120 investors – two of whom have now died – signed up to the scheme, although it is believed many more have been cheated.

Sentencing the trio at Bradford Crown Court yesterday, Judge Jonathan Durham-Hall stressed to victims he was bound by guidelines which meant the maximum sentence is the 10 years which former fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir was jailed for last week.

However, he told them: “This was an appalling and shocking course of conduct in which so many people you targeted have had the remainder of their lives shattered.

“Your greed and desire for the high life overcame all morality.

“The standing which you had in the past and the veneer of respectability has been well and truly stripped, Mr Hirst and Mr Pollett.

“What you did was callous and cruel. You are common criminals, through and through.”

Pollett, a chartered accountant who posed as an upstanding member of the community in Majorca, was convicted of fraud by a jury at Bradford Crown Court and yesterday jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Hirst’s wife Linda, 62, was found guilty of laundering an estimated £750,000 and jailed for two-and-a-half-years.

John Hirst, who moved to Majorca after being jailed for 
another bogus £500,000 investment scheme defrauding Yorkshire miners out of their redundancy payments in the 1990s, had pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering before the trial and was jailed for nine years.

His solicitor son Daniel Hirst, 36, of Marsh Lane, in Leeds, and step-daughter Zoe Waite, 36, of Sandy Lane, Send, Surrey, who had denied money laundering charges, were previously cleared by the jury.

Judge Durham-Hall yesterday attacked the couple for embroiling their children in the case.

Hirst and Pollett ran the scheme between 2001 and 2009, promising investors lucrative returns from growth on the US stock market while diverting the money to support their own lavish lifestyles.

They would rub shoulders with their victims on golf courses, at the Majorca Cricket Club, and during Rotary Club dinners, all the while siphoning off more money to project an image of success.

The court heard details of the Hirsts’ wedding celebrations on the island in 2006 after they had already tied the knot in Las Vegas at a cost of more than £90,000, where money was lavished on guests many of whom were unsuspecting victims of the fraud.

As their scheme grew in size, Hirst and Pollett would target new arrivals to Majorca, preying on their unfamiliarity with the island and promoting themselves as trustworthy people who could help protect their assets.

Only a handful of the victims attended court yesterday to hear the verdict.

Commercial director Steve Nalty, whose parents Peter and Audrey moved from Sheffield to Majorca 35 years ago, estimates the family lost more than a million pounds through the scheme.

“It has been devastating for my parents,” he said.

“My dad was friends with John Hirst and they knew each other from the cricket club.

“They have lost all their money they worked so hard for throughout their lives.”