UK adviser jailed for fraud

53-year old Simon Sibthorp, a former investment adviser at Blankstone Sington, was found guilty of “deliberately taking advantage” of a client in the Liverpool Crown Court and sentenced to a five-year jail term.

Mr Sibthorp allegedly convinced his client, Rita ‘Betty’ Allen, to hand over GBP301,500 to buy a property in the Languedoc region of France on the Mediterranean coast.

"The prosecution say that this defendant was able to steal this sum of money by deliberately taking advantage of an elderly person,” prosecutor Kenneth Grant GC told the court.

"A spinster, who had trusted the defendant to act in her best interests financially and whose trust this defendant cynically betrayed."

Blankstone Sington dismissed Mr Sibthorp in November 2011 for gross misconduct after not disclosing loans from his client.