IFA Grahame Whitehead ordered to pay fraud victims £2.6m

Not much of a sentance for causing so much hardship for so many people. Typical Judges, harping on about the fairness of the sentance instead of what the justice would be for the victems. Bring on the general public to sentance criminals for a year, see what difference that will make to the sentances.

Trust that the public to which you refer will have at least a reasonable command of the 3 Rs!

That said I agree that judges are far too soft with sentencing, but is prison really the answer for someone like Whitehead who poses no physical threat to the community? I believe that some really long term demeaning community sentence along with confiscation of ALL his assets would be more appropriate. He should also be forced to face all his victims and his service should be directed for their benefit as a token reparation for the financial harm he has inflicted upon them.

Returning to my age old theme - where were the FSA? Too busy dreaming up their next fantastic theme to worry about actual regulation and financial crime. As always they fail!

Sentence!! yes the lack of a spell check and a rush to judge always cocks things up:) I agree that more intelligent and imaginative sentences than just prison should be used, what about the stocks? or cleaning out an old peoples homes toilets for the next 10 years? Much cheaper than prison.

Oh, and I agree that the FSA have failed again. I think that the only problem with giving the FSA a good bashing about all its failures is that we advisers will suffer from excessive further regulation which will keep the public no safer but give us more work and grief.

PS I am educated enough to get the 140 points needed for the Diploma:) My issue is more to do with a high typing speed and not checking my comment before its sent.

Sorry Alan - just couldn't resist it and I often find myself typing in Welsh! I think one thing that is difficult when considering suitable community sentences is that what is perceived as demeaning to us can often be a job that someone is paid to perform.

I think that you are on the right lines and I cannot for the life of me see why we should support this crook in the comfort of prison and that his liberty could easily be suficiently curtailed by having to report for unpaid work for the full term of his sentence - none of this "Oh you've been a good boy - off you go then" when only half the term or less has been served. Fancifully perhaps a role at the FSA teaching them how to look out for people in the industry who are harming clients - if his £250,000 a year salary, £100K bonus and £1Million pension pot were then sequestrated that would go a long way towards the compensation his clients deserve. As a bonus where else could he obtain more opprobrium from the profession?

I would like to know where Burns Anderson was in all this, assuming they had some responsibilty for the individual. I also agree that some sort of demeaning reparation to the victims would be appropriate, as well as a prison sentence. Some of these unfortunate people will suffer a financial life sentence because of this so and so.

All very easy to judge with hindsight. It was out and out fraud and not bad advice that was the problem. How much of that goes on unoticed in society be it committed by accountants, solicitors, financial advisors or suchlike. No good blaming Burns Anderson.

i am staggered that only £2.6m can be recovered. Where on earth is the other £23.4m? surely that is too big a sum to have been lost on depreciation on bentleys and ferraris and on meals in fancy restaurants - it must have gone into something reasonably tangible. this should be traced and recovered. no doubt the rest of us will have to stump up higher FSCS levies too.

and, in line with some of the other comments, where were the file checks etc from burns anderson, and where was the FSA oversight?

If the Buck does not stop with Burns Anderson who seem to have said that this fraud was not actually part of any regulated activity but pure theft then i do not see how the rest of us can face an increased levy. Agree that Whitehead should be handed over to CIA to extract whereabouts of missing funds.

I think matters of this kind need to be treated with appropriately. True, he may not cause any physical harm to the public, but the mental anguish he has caused his victims and the potential and real harm to their financial wellbeing (which leads to mental anguish) needs to be taken very very seriously. I think sentences are too lenient. If sentences were longer and parole not available for longer periods of time it may deter some of these 'professional' criminals from defrauding the public in the first place. Lock them away for at least 10 years and refuse parole considerations for at least half of that sentence. If they stole once (and to this extent) they are bound to consider doing it again. I wonder how many are currently let out of prison after just 18 months to 2 years to free up space and resources, far too may I suspect. The public need to be protected.

Richard , file checks ?? it was fraud !

Justifiably a prison sentence of several years, which will cost the taxpayer a fortune. Why not have non-violent prisoners work doing tasks that will aid the community but for which funds to do such are not available elsewhere: graffiti cleansing, rubbish collection in areas not regularly served by street-cleaners, beach cleaning, sorting landfill for recycling, etc etc ...

And maybe if these people's efforts produced some income, we could afford to lock up the violent offenders who don't seem to get punishment to fit the crime: assault someone and get community service because you didn't actually take something from the government. (VAT and tax fraud guarantees a prison term!)

His crime was bad as it made Innocent individuals suffer mentally as well as financially, but if he had just beaten them up, he would still be free: some justice system we have.

@Richard Anderson

I agree that £23 million of unrecovered money raises serious questions as to where it went. A fraudster who has planned something at this level can easily also plan to hide funds and accounts from the authorities once caught and that is a very nice payday on leaving prison after only 4 years.

Newg - I think you will find that the overall investigation will take into account his assets worldwide. If they can legally recover funds from those, then I am sure that that will happen in due course. It may take some time however to unravel it all.

There is a further twist to this.The judge ruled that only Crown witnesses that gave sworn court testimony will shar the recovered assests.There is a group of us not residing in the UK that have been left in the cold.The investigating Officers at Essex Police told us that it was not necessary to travel to the UK to give sworn testimony and that they had sufficient witnesses to procecute and convict Whitehead.A group named the Salvation group was formed consisting of UK and overseas parties and through their lawyers liquidated Woodbridge F/S and bankcrupted Whitehead in order to have a fair distribution of recovered assets and so we thought.The Judge refused to entertain the civil claims and ordered that the matter was closed.Therefore we the outsiders which includes British Nationals who were defrauded of over two million pounds of life savings have been left in the cold.If this is not a miscarriage of justice then I do not know what is.Is this an example of British justice.We are all pretty broke by this and some of are on retirement.If there is anyone out there that can help or suggest how we legally can still access and participate inthe recovered assets PLEASE HELP.If you are a Lawyer we would even be prepared on a percentage of recovery basis.Thanks for hearing me out

Thomas. As a Claims Management Company we would be prepared to consider assisting you. Therefore please contact me on 020 7193 0831 paul@financialadviceliability.com

It was so easy to defraud everyone, no official could see because he kept all paperwork from them from the sight of all employees etc how would anyone else know. He put his huge house in his wifes name so no one could take that from him and his private secretary was his sister in law who took his side in court a few years ago when I worked for him and took him to court. There must be much much more hidden and as he liked the best of everything you can bet its safetly tucked away with relations or in South Africa for the luxury lifestyle when he comes out. When i worked for him he took all the staff (except me-left to run the office) to a safari park in South Africa that he was intending buying to sho off- all expenses paid -- BY GUESS WHO OUT THERE?

Newg, or should i call you Gwen? Seems like you are a bit jealous of what happened in the past. Maybe your comments would be more readable if you commented on the story in question, not why your weren't taken on a business holiday and as you said "except me-left to run the office".