The wife of a top financial adviser discovered he had stolen almost £15 million to feed a gambling addiction only when armed police turned up at her door to arrest him.
Hannah David, 51, a former national director of the Conservative policy forum, said three police officers had arrived with an arrest warrant in November 2017.
“At that point, my husband and I had been married for 24 years, and while our relationship was far from perfect, I had no reason to think he was involved in criminal activity,” she said. “In the days, weeks and months that followed, it slowly became apparent that he had orchestrated a massive fraud, through which he targeted some of the most vulnerable members of our community.”
As managing director of HBFS Wealth Management, Freddy David, 53, of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, used his good reputation in the Jewish community to sell clients opportunities that did not exist. He left some elderly investors contemplating suicide.
David was released from prison in June after serving half of his six-year sentence for theft and fraud.
His wife is now calling for the government to legislate to reduce gambling harms.
The former Conservative Party councillor, who stood as a prospective parliamentary candidate in Harrow West in 2015 and 2017, met her husband on a student trip in 1989.
He was studying industrial economics at the London School of Economics and she was studying law at Leeds University. They married four years later, by which time he was working for Barclays Bank and she was training as a solicitor in London. He left Barclays in 2003 and took over a wealth management company, providing investment advice to individuals.
By this time she was a practising solicitor and had three children. “I felt financially secure and that we led a privileged life,” she said. Less than 15 years later, it became clear that all was not as it seemed.
“I soon discovered that my husband had been lying to me — and to everyone else — for more than a decade. I learnt he was a gambling addict who stole from his clients through a Ponzi scheme, which he set up alongside his legitimate business to feed his habit. It emerged in court that he had gambled approximately £15 million in over 10,000 online transactions, more than £13 million of which he stole from investors. His addiction was so bad that he gambled more than he stole. We never saw the money or knew it existed. He routinely lost up to £100,000 in an evening, and on one occasion almost £250,000 in a day.”
She added: “The moment he confessed to what he had done, I knew our marriage was over.” She has since filed for divorce and sold the family home. Another jointly owned property also had to be sold, and she lives in rented accommodation.
“My children were thankfully old enough to fend for themselves. But more than four years later, I don’t think that any of us have fully come to terms with what has happened.
“I am fortunate that I have always worked and that I am in a position to rebuild my life. I do not feel like a victim. Freddy did far more damage to others than he did to me. Nevertheless, what has happened has taken an emotional toll.”
Now she is working with the Labour MP Carolyn Harris, chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling-related harm, to campaign about the problem.
She said: “I know much more about gambling addiction now than I did four years ago. It is a hidden addiction. Unlike substance addictions, which are accompanied by signs of intoxication and physical decline, gambling addiction often goes undetected by friends and family members until the financial pressures become impossible to conceal. It is an addiction that can affect anyone, regardless of background, ethnicity, class or gender. I also know that there is a great deal more that can be done to reduce the harms experienced by gamblers, their families and the wider community.
“One of the most striking things about Freddy’s case is that he was able, over the course of more than a decade, to gamble astronomical sums of money without any effective intervention from his bank or the online gambling companies he patronised.”
The government is reviewing the Gambling Act 2005, which she said had been “widely criticised for liberalising gambling laws and enabling the proliferation of gambling advertising, it is vital that we seize the opportunity to reduce gambling related harm”. She believes banks should have a responsibility to monitor large sums of money moving from accounts to gambling companies.
Harris said: “Hannah’s story exposes how the addiction of gambling can affect people from every walk of life with devastating consequences. While the banking industry deserves praise for taking positive steps to look at the harms of gambling and the responsibility they bear, more still needs to be done to identify high-risk patterns of behaviour.”
It is not his banks job to stop him gambling, though how these transactions got past the money laundering rules is more interesting
*Hannah David, 51, a former national director of the Conservative policy forum*
No sympathy. hope the fallout leads to her getting a taste of her own medicine.
Perhaps it is time to channel your hate towards the Conservatives who took bribes from the Gambling Industry to not regulate them further.
2017? Wouaouh… fresh news are always the best ones. Thank you
I mean to be the sentencing for fraud is ridiculously lenient.
6 years, out in 3, stealing £15m and leaving people suicidal and destitute.
Its such a cold and calculated offence. 3 strike burglars will do 3 years in prison for entering an unoccupied home and stealing a phone.
I thought that Conservatives hated intervention from the “nanny state”? However, I do feel sorry for her and hope that this has shifted her politics for the better
Quite apart from anything else, how is someone enough of a Jonah to burn through 15m quid?
Did he ritually shoot an albatross every time he put a bet on?
In cases like these, most people only have sympathy for the pensioners who have had their savings stolen.
But let’s not forget that the fraudster’s family are the real victims in all of this.
If you’ve so much wealth you don’t notice a missing £15m, don’t be expecting any simpathy.
10 comments
The wife of a top financial adviser discovered he had stolen almost £15 million to feed a gambling addiction only when armed police turned up at her door to arrest him.
Hannah David, 51, a former national director of the Conservative policy forum, said three police officers had arrived with an arrest warrant in November 2017.
“At that point, my husband and I had been married for 24 years, and while our relationship was far from perfect, I had no reason to think he was involved in criminal activity,” she said. “In the days, weeks and months that followed, it slowly became apparent that he had orchestrated a massive fraud, through which he targeted some of the most vulnerable members of our community.”
As managing director of HBFS Wealth Management, Freddy David, 53, of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, used his good reputation in the Jewish community to sell clients opportunities that did not exist. He left some elderly investors contemplating suicide.
David was released from prison in June after serving half of his six-year sentence for theft and fraud.
His wife is now calling for the government to legislate to reduce gambling harms.
The former Conservative Party councillor, who stood as a prospective parliamentary candidate in Harrow West in 2015 and 2017, met her husband on a student trip in 1989.
He was studying industrial economics at the London School of Economics and she was studying law at Leeds University. They married four years later, by which time he was working for Barclays Bank and she was training as a solicitor in London. He left Barclays in 2003 and took over a wealth management company, providing investment advice to individuals.
By this time she was a practising solicitor and had three children. “I felt financially secure and that we led a privileged life,” she said. Less than 15 years later, it became clear that all was not as it seemed.
“I soon discovered that my husband had been lying to me — and to everyone else — for more than a decade. I learnt he was a gambling addict who stole from his clients through a Ponzi scheme, which he set up alongside his legitimate business to feed his habit. It emerged in court that he had gambled approximately £15 million in over 10,000 online transactions, more than £13 million of which he stole from investors. His addiction was so bad that he gambled more than he stole. We never saw the money or knew it existed. He routinely lost up to £100,000 in an evening, and on one occasion almost £250,000 in a day.”
She added: “The moment he confessed to what he had done, I knew our marriage was over.” She has since filed for divorce and sold the family home. Another jointly owned property also had to be sold, and she lives in rented accommodation.
“My children were thankfully old enough to fend for themselves. But more than four years later, I don’t think that any of us have fully come to terms with what has happened.
“I am fortunate that I have always worked and that I am in a position to rebuild my life. I do not feel like a victim. Freddy did far more damage to others than he did to me. Nevertheless, what has happened has taken an emotional toll.”
Now she is working with the Labour MP Carolyn Harris, chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling-related harm, to campaign about the problem.
She said: “I know much more about gambling addiction now than I did four years ago. It is a hidden addiction. Unlike substance addictions, which are accompanied by signs of intoxication and physical decline, gambling addiction often goes undetected by friends and family members until the financial pressures become impossible to conceal. It is an addiction that can affect anyone, regardless of background, ethnicity, class or gender. I also know that there is a great deal more that can be done to reduce the harms experienced by gamblers, their families and the wider community.
“One of the most striking things about Freddy’s case is that he was able, over the course of more than a decade, to gamble astronomical sums of money without any effective intervention from his bank or the online gambling companies he patronised.”
The government is reviewing the Gambling Act 2005, which she said had been “widely criticised for liberalising gambling laws and enabling the proliferation of gambling advertising, it is vital that we seize the opportunity to reduce gambling related harm”. She believes banks should have a responsibility to monitor large sums of money moving from accounts to gambling companies.
Harris said: “Hannah’s story exposes how the addiction of gambling can affect people from every walk of life with devastating consequences. While the banking industry deserves praise for taking positive steps to look at the harms of gambling and the responsibility they bear, more still needs to be done to identify high-risk patterns of behaviour.”
It is not his banks job to stop him gambling, though how these transactions got past the money laundering rules is more interesting
*Hannah David, 51, a former national director of the Conservative policy forum*
No sympathy. hope the fallout leads to her getting a taste of her own medicine.
Perhaps it is time to channel your hate towards the Conservatives who took bribes from the Gambling Industry to not regulate them further.
2017? Wouaouh… fresh news are always the best ones. Thank you
I mean to be the sentencing for fraud is ridiculously lenient.
6 years, out in 3, stealing £15m and leaving people suicidal and destitute.
Its such a cold and calculated offence. 3 strike burglars will do 3 years in prison for entering an unoccupied home and stealing a phone.
I thought that Conservatives hated intervention from the “nanny state”? However, I do feel sorry for her and hope that this has shifted her politics for the better
Quite apart from anything else, how is someone enough of a Jonah to burn through 15m quid?
Did he ritually shoot an albatross every time he put a bet on?
In cases like these, most people only have sympathy for the pensioners who have had their savings stolen.
But let’s not forget that the fraudster’s family are the real victims in all of this.
If you’ve so much wealth you don’t notice a missing £15m, don’t be expecting any simpathy.