A Suffolk letting agent who stole £50,000 from landlords has claimed he can only afford to repay £3,000.
Roy Jackson, 39, from Ipswich was jailed for 20 months in November last year after a fraud which the prosecution valued at £68,000 but Jackson’s solicitor claimed was about £50,000.
Jackson had cheated 31 landlords out of rent money they were owed, closed his Ipswich letting agent business and moved to London. He was arrested at Stansted airport last September when about to fly to Ibiza.
At a Proceeds of Crime hearing before Judge David Goodin at Ipswich Crown Court this week, it was claimed Jackson only had realisable assets of £2,964.27 – so that’s all he has to repay.
If he fails to pay the money by 30 April he must serve a further six weeks in jail.
The Ipswich Star reports how at Jackson’s sentencing Judge Peters Assistant Judge Advocate General described the letting agent as “quite frankly a dishonest man”.
Jackson had pleaded guilty to fraud between January 2011 and January 2013 at his first appearance before Ipswich Crown Court.
After his sentencing Detective Constable Donna Whelan-Smith, who was hunting Jackson for 18 months after he shut up shop and disappeared, said: “Mr Jackson had a clear intention to defraud and lie to his clients, some of whom were retired landlords whose livelihoods depended on the rental incomes that were stolen by him.
“He had no regard or sympathy for any of the victims which was clear when he was detained by police at Stansted airport about to board a flight to Ibiza for a holiday.”
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