You sold your souls for sex and swag, bankers told - A drop in the ocean compared to the factoring industry

A former banker was told he had “sold his soul for sex, luxury trips, bling and swag” as he and five accomplices were jailed yesterday for a scam that involved stealing millions from struggling businesses.

David Mills and Lynden Scourfield, right, were jailed for stealing millionsTHAMES VALLEY POLICE

 There were cheers and applause at Southwark crown court as Lynden Scourfield, 54, a former senior manager at HBOS, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, with Judge Martin Beddoe describing the disgraced banker as “utterly corrupt”.

Judge Beddoe handed a 15-year sentence to David Mills, 60, and said that the banker-turned-business consultant was a “thoroughly corrupt and devious man, adept at exploiting the weaknesses of others”.
He told Scourfield: “You have shown not one shred of remorse. I don’t know how Mr Mills got hold of you. He is the devil to who you sold your soul in exchange for sex, for luxury trips with or without your wife, for bling, for swag,” said the judge.

“People haven’t just lost money but in some instances their homes, family and friends. People who could have expected to be comfortable in retirement were left cheated, defeated and penniless,” he added.

Mills’s wife, Alison, 51, was given a three-and-a-half-year jail term after being found guilty on one charge of conspiracy to conceal criminal property.

People haven’t just lost money but in some instances their homes, family and friends

Michael Bancroft, 73, an associate of the couple, was jailed for ten years, and John Cartwright, 72, another business colleague of the rogue consultants, was handed a three-and-a-half-year sentence.
Mark Dobson, 56, a former colleague of Scourfield’s at HBOS, was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
The sentences were the culmination of a five-month trial that exposed how the crooked bankers conspired with the consultants to asset-strip HBOS business customers who had been put into the lender’s Reading-based specialist unit for firms in financial difficulty
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However, instead of helping turn around the customers’ fortunes, Scourfield authorised tens of millions in illegal loans that were then used to pay the exorbitant fees of the Mills family’s business, Quayside Corporate Services, in return for exotic holidays and envelopes stuffed full of “funny money” to pay for his hire of prostitutes. At one point, Scourfield was even given an American Express card by Mills to pay for his personal expenditure.

Estimates of the total losses incurred by HBOS vary, but some experts have put the cost of the scandal to the bank, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, at more than £1 billion.

The Millses made so much money from the scheme they were able to afford a lifestyle that included high-end cars, an estate in Gloucestershire, and a 100ft yacht named Powdermonkey.
Bancroft owned a villa in Portugal, as well as a large property outside the Warwickshire town of Shipston-on-Stour.

Nikki and Paul Turner, whose business was one of those targeted by the fraudsters and who played an instrumental role in uncovering the scandal, said that they took “only partial satisfaction” in the lengthy sentences handed down by the court.

“People have lost their businesses, people have had their lives ruined, and have been met by at best callous indifference, and at worse little less than persecution, by one of the UK’s leading high-street banks,” said Mrs Turner.

Lloyds is under pressure to compensate the victims of the scam and the Turners have written to Lord Blackwell, the bank’s chairman, demanding redress from the lender.

 http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/you-sold-souls-for-sex-and-swag-jailed-bankers-told-drccngn3l?shareToken=81be4ddafaa5e7942e541adbbaac32eb