Banker Gets A Parrot Habit And Blows Stolen £2 Million On Birds

[Timble2]

Not really that Fortean, but odd all the same.

Have you seen this Beakboo?

Full story at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3201135.stm

Banker stole to buy parrots

A financial advisor who stole £2m from customers and used the money to buy rare parrots has been jailed for nine years.
Lee Gardiner, 32, used his position at Lloyds TSB bank to move cash from elderly and vulnerable clients' accounts to his own account, and that of his partner.

Gardiner admitted 24 counts of theft at an earlier hearing
A financial advisor who stole £2m from customers and used the money to buy rare parrots has been jailed for nine years.
Lee Gardiner, 32, used his position at Lloyds TSB bank to move cash from elderly and vulnerable clients' accounts to his own account, and that of his partner.

Gardiner, of Minster Road, Sheerness, Kent, then spent £450,000 on exotic parrots, including palm cockatoos at £20,000 a pair.

He also bought a £450,000 bedroom house near Hever to keep his massive collection, said to be one of the biggest in the UK....

 

[Anonymous]

weird link with this one...in fact very wierd!.... couple of years ago i was talking to a guy who had his bed room invaded by cops doing servalence on a local rare bird place...i think it may be to do with this case as he was told that some fraudsters was buying extremely rare birds for a private collection and they wanted evidence.



it get stranger tho...this guys nick name was Pervy Sid and he was a gay S&M fan. Two coppers on the door step requesting the use of his bed room led to much tidying up (of equipment) and Vid's and he complained he had to move his custom built four poster out as it had some rather obvious attachments!

 

[Beakmoo]

Rare birds should stay in the wild where they belong, and the money should have been spent in maintaining their habitats. This man obviously doesn't care about parrots at all, but only about himself.

 

[Yithian]

There is quite a lot more detail to this--and the obligatory pun in the title:

Doing bird, the parrot loving conman
Rebecca Allison
Wed 3 Sep 2003 01.59 BST

Most conmen swindle money to give themselves a champagne lifestyle; others, it seems, prefer to buy bird seed.

Financial adviser Lee Gardiner didn't crave fast cars, yachts and exotic holidays. Instead it was his penchant for parrots which drove him on.

Within four years he had stolen more than £2m and used the money to buy and keep the largest collection of exotic birds in Britain.

Gardiner, 32, who was yesterday jailed for nine years, used his position at Lloyds TSB bank in Sevenoaks, Kent, to transfer cash into his own account from those of elderly and vulnerable clients in order to subsidise his hobby.

He built 20 aviaries in his back garden with heating and running water to house the rare birds.

After spending an initial £450,000 to build up the collection, which included palm cockatoos at £20,000 a pair, Pesquet's parrots at £15,000 a pair and gang-gang cockatoos at £25,000 a pair, Gardiner had to find more money to maintain and feed them.

Maidstone crown court heard yesterday that the trusted employee, who had worked at the bank since 1992, stole from 38 customers over a period of four years, debiting each account by between £5,000 and £187,000.

Suspicions were not raised until last August, when he was caught transferring £928,000 into the account of his partner, Claire Richards, in three separate transactions, taking the total stolen to £2,172,432. He admitted 24 counts of theft between 1999 and 2002 at a hearing in July and also asked for 204 similar offences to be taken into consideration. After pleading guilty to taking the money, he told the court: "I spent it on looking after my birds, a lot of it on food. Collecting parrots is my hobby. It's what I do".

Sentencing him yesterday, Judge Andrew Patience described his conduct as "outrageous and disgraceful" and said his actions had undermined the public's confidence in banks.

The court was told that some of the customers targeted had since died and that none had been aware of his actions until informed by the bank. Gardiner claimed he bought the birds as a form of distraction when his partner became depressed and his father was diagnosed with cancer.

David Lyons, defending, said that his collecting "started sensibly and ballooned into almost an obsession: something he could not control."

He admitted his client's actions had amounted to a "gross and prolonged breach of trust" but said his early guilty plea had spared several elderly and frail witnesses the ordeal of coming to court.

Staff at the Avicultural Society, based in Cornwall, said Gardiner, who had been treasurer for the last two years until investigated by police, was a quiet man. The society's magazine editor, Malcolm Ellis, said: "You can seen how he was successful because you never really noticed him. He was very unassuming. I never saw his collection but on monetary value alone, it was one of the biggest in the country."

Raymond Sawyer, who knew him through the society, said: "He is a charming man. He was always very honest as a treasurer. We rather wondered where the money was coming from."

Full Article:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/03/rebeccaallison

 

[IbisNibs]

He built 20 aviaries in his back garden

He had space enough for twenty aviaries ?!!?

stole from 38 customers over a period of four years, debiting each account by between £5,000 and £187,000.

More than ten years worth of income for some people I know . . .

The court was told that some of the customers targeted had since died and that none had been aware of his actions until informed by the bank.

Granted some of the poor souls who were robbed were elderly, but . . . !!!

Part of what I find so weird about this case is the fact there are people in the world who apparently have enough money that they don't notice they're missing £187,000.

 

[Cloudbusting]

He had space enough for twenty aviaries ?!!?

More than ten years worth of income for some people I know . . .

Granted some of the poor souls who were robbed were elderly, but . . . !!!

Part of what I find so weird about this case is the fact there are people in the world who apparently have enough money that they don't notice they're missing £187,000.

Exactly! I was wondering how it took so long for him to be caught however I guess if no-one noticed and complained, who would realise?