A UK financial adviser has escaped a jail sentence despite stealing more than £200,000 from six pensioners and using it to make bets on football games.
As reported in the Daily Mail, Marc Burnett, a senior banking advisor for Lloyds Banks, made 45 false transactions between 2008 and 2013, using “standing orders to siphon money from the unknowing pensioners’ accounts into ones he controlled”.
“The accounts he stole money from were not randomly selected from the computer,” Prosecutor Phillip Evans said in the Daily Mail.
“They were people Mr Burnett met face to face or on the telephone and then swindled them of their life savings.
“He targeted six customer accounts. One has since died and the other cannot be found. They approached him for financial advice and they trusted him with their life savings.”
Mr Burnett pleaded guilty to six charges of fraud and was given a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid word.
Lloyds Banks terminated Mr Burnett when the fraud was uncovered and has since refunded the missing money to the victims.
