Two Ellon grandparents have told how their dream of retiring to Cornwall has been destroyed after they lost more than £150,000 to a cruel con artist in a scam.
The couple, both in their 70s, were all set to move to the south-west of England to live out their retirement next door to family.
But that dream came crashing down in devastating fashion when police informed them their so-called financial advisor had swindled them out of £158,037.03 and fled to America.
On Friday, Alexander Martin Idris Hind, 44, finally appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and admitted his guilt over a string of similar cons.
Sentence was deferred on Hind, who was eventually extradited back to Scotland after living it up in a lavish South Carolina house for years, and he is now behind bars as he waits to learn his fate.
‘He’s absconded and I don’t think you’ll get your money back’
Two of his victims, a retired helicopter pilot and credit controller wife from Ellon, attended court to see for themselves the man who scammed them out of their retirement dream.
The remorseless Hind ignored them as he was led away in handcuffs, but the couple have now spoken out about their experience.
The husband said: “My sister lives in Cornwall and we were going to buy the house next door to her.
“We planned everything. We got planning permission, we got drawings for an extension lined up, we got a builder lined up – and then we found out our money was no longer available.
“It scuppered our plans. And my sister feels very aggrieved as we were going to help each other into old age.
“That was our one shot. That’s it finished.”
Hind was working for a legitimate Aberdeen financial company when the couple sought his expert advice.
He managed to steal their savings by setting up a company and bank account with a similar-sounding name to the legitimate firm so that they would be fooled into paying him money.
‘He’s totally callous’
“When he did our financial analysis before, he said ‘I see you’re both risk averse’.
“I said ‘yeah, because we’re at an age where we’re not working, so if we lose anything we can’t recoup it’.
“He said ‘yeah I see where you’re coming from’ – and then took all our money.
“He’s totally callous. It was premeditated. The only thing that was important to him was getting money into his bank account.”
Asked how they felt about their dream being dashed, his wife replied: “Gutted.”
She first learned they had lost everything when she took a call from the police.
‘Are you sitting down?’
She described how an officer first asked if she knew Hind and then, when she said he was their financial advisor, he said: “Are you sitting down?”
She added: “I said ‘Oh dear god, no. What?’.
“And he said ‘I’m sorry but this is now a police matter and I’d like to come and talk to you’.”
The officer broke the news in person, telling her: “I’m so sorry, but he’s absconded and I don’t think you’ll get your money back.”
Describing what happened next, she went on: “I was in disbelief.
“After he left, I just sat on the floor and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.”
The retired credit controller then had the unenviable task of breaking the bad news to her husband.
He said: “As you can imagine I was totally unhappy about it.
‘He’s got no conscience’
“We felt like fools.
“We’d been conned, there’s no doubt about it, but conned by an expert, so if you’re going to get conned, get somebody good to do it.
“He was an expert at his job.”
The cruel conman used his fake company to scam a number of pensioners out of retirement money and life insurance pay-outs totalling more than half a million pounds – then fled to the US before law enforcement could catch up with him.
The couple say they have exhausted every avenue they can think of to try to recover even a fraction of their money, but have hit a brick wall at every turn.
He said: “When we went to try and get some recompense from other parties that we thought might bare responsibility, nobody takes any responsibility whatsoever.
“We got a good solicitor in Aberdeen to look at it on a pro bono basis and he got a QC to look at it, and they were surprised that we were not able to achieve anything.
“We’ve not had a single penny back.
‘He should stay in prison until the last person he’s defrauded has died’
“We are lucky that he didn’t take everything or else we would’ve just had two old age pensions to live on.”
When the couple, who have six grandchildren, attended court to watch the case, Hind completely ignored them.
“There was no acknowledgement. I don’t think he’s remorseful,” said the retired pilot.
“If I had an opportunity to speak to the court, I’d say he should stay in prison until the last person he’s defrauded has died, but that won’t happen.”
Hind is due to be sentenced later this month.
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