I’ve £9 left in jail at the minute insists cocaine-lifestyle villain £1,000 a week drug habit

Keith Swift, who prosecutors say could have more than £1m in ill-gotten gains, admitted he enjoyed a “very comfortable” lifestyle in an expensive Leeds home before he was arrested.

But he told Leeds Crown Court yesterday the money he made from crime had gone, and all he had left was “the £9 I have in prison at the minute”.

He claimed he was owed more than £21,000 by an associate with paramilitary connections in Northern Ireland, but that money could not be recovered. He was shot in 2002 when he tried to reclaim a similar debt, he said.

Swift, 50, former Humberside Police officer Stephen Spellacy, 39, John Taylor, 37, and Peter Harrington, 40, have all been sentenced for their role in defrauding the York-based insurance company Norwich Union in 2007.

Now prosecutors are seeking confiscation orders against all four, which would require them to repay money they stole or face more time in prison.

Recorder Mark Bury, who is expected to give judgment in the case next week, has heard that almost £700,000 remains unaccounted for.

Swift, who has been described in court as a “career criminal”, was asked to give details of his lifestyle prior to his arrest.

He told the hearing he lived in an exclusive area of Leeds city centre, near the Royal Armouries museum.

“I was very comfortable,” he said. “I always had nice cars around me.”

Asked who his next-door neighbour was, he replied: “Chris Moyles. And one of the Leeds Rhinos rugby players lived on the other side.”

Swift told the court he had a heart condition but started taking cocaine in October 2008 because he was stressed.

He said he took the drug for six to nine months and would typically spend between £500 and £1,000 a week on the habit.

Swift said he later became “so short of money” he asked for his 11-year-old daughter’s bank account number and sort code so he could borrow her savings.

He said he could not pay maintenance for his daughter and had wanted to challenge his sentence at the Court of Appeal but could not afford the legal fees.

The court heard that Swift lived in Northern Ireland between 1995 and 2003.

He told the hearing an associate there, named Adrian Grant, owed him £21,600, but he would not be returning to get it back. “He’s part of the paramilitaries over there,” Swift said, “and I’m not going to go into that area and try to retrieve it. I tried to do that on February 14, 2002, and I was shot.”

The hearing has been told that Taylor, working as an operations manager at Norwich Union, transferred more than £1m from the company into a bank account belonging to Harrington, of Newland View, Normanton.

From there, the plan was to split the proceeds between a number of conspirators, including the four men facing confiscation proceedings.

But Taylor, formerly of Nunthorpe Crescent, South Bank, York, and Spellacy, formerly of Garths End, Pocklington, have told the hearing they never saw a penny from the fraud.

They say cash found at their homes – and money they spent on escorts – came from earlier, smaller frauds against the insurance company, of which they were also convicted.

The court heard Swift first met Spellacy face to face when they appeared in the dock together in May 2009. However, phone records showed the pair had exchanged many text messages in 2008, as Spellacy asked Swift what had happened to his share.

Swift, formerly of Queen Elizabeth Drive, Normanton, Wakefield, told the hearing that almost £500,000 from the fraud had gone through his hands, but he had only kept about £80,000.

The remainder, he said, had been given to two colleagues, who were told to keep a share for themselves and give Spellacy and Taylor about £100,000 each.

The hearing continues.