A church elder who stole a woman’s £600,000 life savings and told her it was going into a non-existent offshore scheme has been sentenced to pay back just £1.
David Vaughan Jones, 83, the founder of the Evangelical Church in Newtown, Powys, defrauded members of his congregation by recommending the fraudulent plan. He allegedly pretended to be a respected tax consultant in order to dupe members of his congregation.
According to the court, businesswoman Sharon Myler was the ‘largest single loser,’ having been defrauded of £606,000.
Prosecutor James Davis explained that she only discovered the scam after he was imprisoned for other financial crimes.
‘He persuaded clients to invest in offshore accounts, which he claimed would provide a much higher return than investing in the United States,’ Mr. Davis explained.
‘However, police found no evidence of him ever investing in offshore accounts.’ It was only possible to conclude that the funds did not exist.’
Miss Myler allegedly handed over six separate sums ranging from £30,000 to £160,000 to Jones at Mold Crown Court.
However, no trace of the money was discovered, and he was only ordered to pay a nominal £1.
‘A financial investigation revealed no assets that could be realized to contribute to that figure,’ Mr Davis explained.
‘The defendant is receiving both a private and a state pension. As a result, his honor is invited to place a nominal order of £1 today. Clearly, if any assets become available in the future, this is a subject that can and should be revisited.’
‘David Jones stole my life savings, causing huge financial and personal hardship,’ Ms Myler said in a victim impact statement. He betrayed my trust, lied all the time, and stole a lot of money from me. I had to borrow money from my family, which was humiliating.’
However, he lacked any financial qualifications and was a disgraced former solicitor who was expelled from The Law Society in the early 1990s.
The court heard that ‘prominent’ Jones used his church influence to persuade members to part with large sums of money over a 20-year period.
Jones, of Llandrinio, Powys, was told by Judge Niclas Parry that the money could not be found.
‘It should be noted that an investigation was conducted by officers whose job it is to investigate these matters,’ he said.
‘Remarkably, given how much money was stolen, they simply cannot find it. It is correct to state that the investigation will continue, and if assets are discovered, this order will be reconsidered.
‘There are still people begging me to do something about it, and they understandably believe I’ve let them down.’
‘I simply want them to know that there are people looking into and have been looking into where the remaining money is.’ These people have suffered tremendous losses.’