Ancoats conman urged mum to leave her husband – then she found out he’s gay – Manchester Evening News

The extraordinary trail of misery left across the country by a love cheat conman has been described by traumatised victims.

Job losses, mental breakdowns and plunging property values have all been suffered by victims of Stephen Day, a Manchester account who stole from members of the public, businesses and the NHS to fund a luxury lifestyle.

Earlier this month the Ancoats businessman was jailed for over 11 years after admitting various frauds totalling £1.4m. Now, the extent and effect of his deceit on his victims can be revealed, after the Manchester Evening News obtained statements from a number of them.

‘Leave him and I’ll look after your family’

Among the victims was a mother-of-two who, after being encouraged by Day to leave her husband and bring her children with her, learnt he was gay – and in relationships with two men.

She was an old flame.

They had known each other while working at the offices University of Oxford offices in the mid 1980s, and then lost touch for years.

But, in 2014, she found Day on LinkedIn and decided to contact him.

By that time she was married with two children. But, when Stephen Day said he still had feelings for her, she believed him.

He said he wanted to be with her so they could grow old together.

Day told her that he was a widower and his wife, Angie, had died from cancer two years earlier.

The pair emailed, texted, and phoned each other. Soon after they started chatting again they met in person.

She was going through a rocky period in her marriage and, realising she had feelings still for Day, told him it was best that they had no further contact.

Day charmed her into continuing their rekindled friendship.

In September 2014 he told her he wanted them to be a couple but said he would bide his time until she was officially split from her husband.

But Day’s backstory was a callous lie.

He had never been married, ‘Angie’ had never existed. He was gay, and was in relationships with two men – neither of whom was aware of the other.

He was also, by this time, under investigation by police for a web of deception and fraud which a judge would later describe as ‘industrial scale dishonesty’.

Greater Manchester Police say he promoted himself as a ‘financial turnaround consultant and accountant’ advising companies on their business.

He worked under 20 company names – including Entrusted Group Ltd – based in a converted mill at Jersey Street, Ancoats.

Several companies reported that money was disappearing while Day was managing their finances, between 2011 and 2014, and GMP’s Specialist Fraud Investigation Team began an exhaustive inquiry.

While employed as an accountant or financial director, Day would take control of their funds and siphon off cash to his own accounts.

He also duped the NHS by becoming a financial director for three trusts at the same time against the regulations.

In the woman who fell for him, he had snared another opportunity to get cash, and ruthlessly exploited it.

On September 12, 2014 he emailed her to say his car had been broken into as he visited his mother in a nursing home, and all his possessions had been taken. In fact, on that day he had been arrested by police who seized various items.

A few days later Day talked to the woman about ‘Angie’ and wanting them to be together.

He then lied repeatedly to the woman in order to get her to give him a total of £4,587. Some of the money was transferred to his bank and she also paid for things.

Her first ‘loan’ was £360 to help him with ‘paying bailiffs in Manchester’. Then he told her he was broke, and having to go to soup kitchens.

But bank records later showed that on the same day he spent £86.90 for a meal at a restaurant close to one of his homes in the picturesque village of Aberford on the outskirts of Leeds.

Yet, the woman had sent him a food hamper and paid for meals when they met, as he had told her he was short of money.

He told her he was owed a large sum by the NHS for a contract they were refusing to pay and had taken legal proceedings in the High Court. The truth was he was being taken to court by a company.

He then said he had won the court case but as he would not receive the money for several weeks asked if she could help out. She sent him £1000 – money she had saved in a Christmas club.

By December 2014 Day was telling the woman he would ‘love to look after her family’, saying there had been no one in his life since ‘Angie’. Keeping up the pretence, he advised her to consult a solicitor about leaving her husband.

Then, in February 2015, she received a Valentine’s Day card from him with a cheque inside for the £4,500 he had borrowed from her.

The cheque would later bounce.

By April that year she was helping him apply for jobs and found one for him in the Isle of Wight.

Day told her he had landed an interview for the post but said he had no money to travel. So she gave him £150 for a flight from Leeds to Southampton for an interview on April 17.

There was no interview. On that date Day was in Selby, Yorkshire, withdrawing £30 from a cash machine.

But the woman’s faith in Day remained unshaken. After he told her got the job she sent a potted plant to Day’s new employers for him to put on his desk.

The company emailed her to say no one by that name was starting a new job with them.

In spite of that, months later, she sent Day more money when he said he was ill.

Eventually she discovered the truth when she saw through a Facebook post that two of Day’s dogs had gone missing. The woman discovered the dogs were jointly owned by Day and another man – one of two male partners he was juggling.

‘I’ve been had’

Ben Reid, prosecutor with the Specialist Fraud Division of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Mr Day is gay. He had a house in the north (Scotland) and a house in the south (Leeds) and he had a boyfriend in each house. Neither boyfriend knew about the other.

“When the lady went on to Facebook she sees pictures of him with his boyfriend, and at that point thinks ‘I’ve been had’ and goes to the police.”

The woman wasone of scores of people whose lives were damaged by Day as he left a trail of what Judge, His Honour Simon Batiste, called ‘misery, hardship, and anxiety’.

After a six year investigation Day, aged 53, was jailed for eleven years five months for a £1.4m fraud.

At Leeds Crown Court last week the judge told him: “There was no boundary of dishonesty that you were not prepared to cross. The consequences have been enormous both financially and in other respects, including businesses losing viability and being wound up; people losing their jobs; reputational damage, loss of credit rating, and people being unable to sell their homes.”

Day swindled multiple companies and the NHS to finance a luxury lifestyle.

Operating from Flint Glass Works on the edge of Manchester city centre, he wove a complicated web of deceit.

In July 2010, Day set up two companies with other people. Over two-and-a-half years, he moved more than £160,000 from the companies into his own accounts.

One woman had to close four successful healthcare consultancy companies and lost – personally and professionally – £400,000 as a direct result of Day’s crimes.

But she had no reason to suspect Day. She had previously worked with him at Sheffield Primary Care Trust for two years.

From her experience of being a colleague of his she described him as extremely competent, hardworking, supportive, and engaging.

But he used the cash he took from her companies for buying property, furniture, holiday accommodation in Malta, and accessories for his BMW X5.

In a statement to police she said: “All of my life I have worked extremely hard for the benefit of others. I am normally a very strong, resilient and healthy individual who has an extremely positive influence across all areas of my work. However, the cumulative effect of this past three years on both my physical and mental health has been devastating.”

In March 2017 she was admitted to hospital as an emergency which, she says ‘was a direct result of the damages and impact caused by Day’s actions’.

She added: “I am now on long term medication as a result of Day’s treacherous behaviours.”

‘He’s blighted the building – and will be free to retire to South Africa’

Another of Day’s targets was the Asia House Management Company Ltd, which is a residential management company established for a 90-home apartment block on Princess Street, in Manchester city centre.

Day actually had an apartment in the Grade II listed building, which dates from 1906.

The management company collected service charges from residents to provide for upkeep.

But over the two-and-a-half years that he was in charge of its accounts, Day stole £234,000.

One of the directors of the company said in a statement to police in 2017: “Day was fully aware of the impact his actions would have had.

“Day’s actions have meant that for the past two years, it has been impossible to carry out any but the most urgent repairs and maintenance to the building. This has massively degraded the building, as the following examples show.

“The blight on the building directly resulting from Day’s actions has meant that it has become very difficult to sell individual apartments should you want to escape the situation.

“Attendant publicity has meant that local agents are now fully aware of the issues, and the massive financial problems Day has caused are obvious to both potential buyers and their solicitors. Property values have suffered accordingly.”

Even after the theft became apparent Day continued to let – without permission – the apartment he still owned in the building – number 101. Astonishingly, while collecting significant rent he ‘cynically’ refused to pay the £10,000 service charges he owed.

The director added: “His actions since the theft have shown a clear lack of remorse or any concern for his victims. Our fear now is that following a token punishment, he will be free to retire to his home in South Africa and enjoy however much he has managed to salt away without regret or consequence.”

‘I’ve contemplated suicide’

Day also took £419,000 from the accounts of Berkshire and Gloucestershire-based care home companies, Avida Care Limited, Downton Homecare Ltd, and St Vincent’s Homecare Ltd over two and a half years.

One of the directors told police: “I had always been a reasonably fit and healthy person prior to these events. However, both my physical and mental health has suffered during the investigation process due to the massively higher stress on me since the police investigation began. It has affected all aspects of my life – my work and my personal, social and family life.

“I have suffered severe anxiety and depression, sometimes for prolonged periods, since reporting Day’s alleged offences to the police. Sometimes I have even contemplated suicide.

“Before the police investigation I had never suffered such things. The sheer scale of how Day’s wrongdoing has affected me, my family, and my financial security has caused this. I never previously worried about my future financial security, but because of Day’s actions I now do so virtually all the time.

“I regularly wake up in the middle of the night because of worries directly related to Day’s actions – worries about the viability of the business and potential liabilities to HMRC, worries about my and my family’s financial security.”

Another director of the care companies which Day looted said in a statement read to the court: “Our core business is caring for elderly people in their own homes; it has been a struggle to maintain this business however, had we not, many more people would have been affected by the selfish actions of Day.

“We have managed to keep the business running, but the business has had to shrink by about 40 per cent. Over this time our staff complement has shrunk by about 30 people.

“With regards to the business ‘Downton Homecare’ I had no choice but to (with my fellow directors) place the company into administration as a direct consequence of Day removing funds to which he had no right.

“We trusted this man and he has single-handedly destroyed two of the three Downton companies and brought the last of the three companies (Avida) to the brink of closure.

“Day’s actions have seriously damaged our credit history and potentially our reputations too.”

Laughing at the Royal Variety Show – while fleecing taxpayers

The NHS was a victim of Day too.

On November 19th 2012 the host the Royal Variety Performance, David Walliams, flew onto the stage of the Royal Albert Hall on a jet pack. He would introduce Kylie Minogue, Alicia Keys, and Neil Diamond.

In the audience was Stephen Day. He had also managed to find time enjoy afternoon tea at the Lanesborough Hotel in London. He had done all this while claiming a full days’ work for two NHS Trusts in Merseyside and Staffordshire, as finance director.

He had told his boss at the Merseyside Trust he was working from home as he had shingles and needed to quarantine as it was highly contagious.

At the same time he was working for the two trusts he started working for a third – charging £950 a day plus VAT.

It is against regulations to work for more than one NHS Trust at a time.

A court was told that between November 1, 2012 and January 14, 2013, when Day was concurrently employed by either two or three trusts, he claimed £49,942 from the Merseyside Commissioning Support Unit; £40,824 from South East Staffordshire and Seisdon Peninsula CCG and worked two days for Cheshire and Wirral Partnership Trust at a rate of £2,280.

Of the total of £93,046.90 claimed, he was paid only £86,602, as managers refused to sign off on his latter time sheets, once his deception had been discovered.

Day was actually attending his own business meetings instead of fulfilling the full-time roles. He did not tell the second and third NHS employers that he was already employed full time by the NHS.

He actually tried to land a FOURTH post with an NHS Trust in London but was not successful.

When the heat was on Day would come up with more lies. At one meeting he feigned an angina attack; and explained his absence from work while juggling three NHS jobs and being the finance director of private firms, by saying his father had died – when he had actually died nine years earlier; that he had shingles; had fallen off a horse; was receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer, and that his mother had died.

Day used some of his ill-gotten gains from the Asia House fraud to pay for his mother’s care home fees.

But he also spent it on a substantial property portfolio, with an apartment in Manchester; a home in Leeds, and several in Scotland, including a 45-acre estate with its own stretch of salmon fishing on the River Annan. Police also believe he has a property in South Africa which he had refurbished as a holiday let.

‘He was just one those crooks that would’t stop’

Mr Reid said: “He was just one of those crooks that wouldn’t stop, not in interviews, or at court, not even after pleading guilty – he was relentlessly making up more lies.

“He just wouldn’t understand the serious trouble he was in. The best example is right at the end of the case when we were moving towards the final (sentencing) hearing, he lied to the NHS to a get medical appointment hooked in to the day of his sentence, to try and get the hearing put off.”

Day genuinely had kidney stones but told Perth Royal Hospital he was not available for procedures in January and and March this year as he was working in South Africa.

“We were quick enough to go to the NHS and ask ‘what has he told you’. He’d said he’d been off to South Africa so he couldn’t possibly be at any medical appointment before then.”

This was a lie, as police were in possession of Day’s passport and one of his conditions of bail was that he could not travel abroad.

Mr Reid said: “The judge at his sentencing commented on this, saying it was a ‘cynical attempt to engineer a medical procedure to put your case off and is an example of why you have absolutely no remorse in this case.’ “

Before his last ditch attempt to get sentencing delayed Day had spent two years disputing through his legal team the amount he obtained through fraud and theft which delayed the case getting to court.

When police arrested him they ended up seizing two Transit vans full of paperwork which had been mixed up in random piles.

He first pleaded not guilty and arrangements were prepared for an eight week trial. Then he changed his plea and admitted £1,382,244 was taken in total.

At Leeds Crown Court, Day, 53, of Lincoln Court, Chapelford, Warrington – formerly of Quiech Mill, Blairgowrie, and Aberford, Leeds pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud; and three counts of theft.

Day was also banned from being a company director for nine years.

Mr Reid said: “Mr Day was clearly a financial adviser of outstanding ability. He was known in business circles as someone who was a financial whiz-kid. He had been employed by significant employers in the past and the NHS because of his reputation.”

So why did Day turn into a prolific criminal? Mr Reid said: “At some point his finances have taken a dive. Our theory is that he was building himself some kind of property empire. He got so used to this extravagant, lavish lifestyle but must have suffered a financial hit.

“The evidence clearly shows that he finished up circling money through accounts, desperately trying to keep the holes filled. He couldn’t move quick enough to fill the holes and just sank.

“He endlessly told lies and forged documents to try and get away with it over a number of years.

“In his second police interview in September 2014 he said ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about. All this money is still available and I was authorised to do this by the directors.’ When the directors heard this they were spitting feathers.

“When you look at the way he conducted himself in interviews, tried to get the case put off, he is just manipulating again and again and again. He had absolutely no thought for the victims.

“Sometimes in frauds people try to make payments to make good what they have done wrong – not in this case.

“I am really pleased we stood up to him and his arguments and get the right sentence.”

‘We are seeking to limit his access to bank accounts’

Police and the CPS, who worked on the case with the NHS Counter Fraud Authority now intend to pursue Day with a Proceeds of Crime hearing scheduled in November.

“It is not just confiscation that is ongoing,” Mr Reid said. “We are also seeking a serious crime prevention order against Mr Day that will seek to limit his access to bank accounts. He will be allowed one current account, one savings, one credit card, anything else he will have to notify to the police and justify.

“It does appear that bits of money have been squirrelled away into accounts, we will get into that when we examine hidden assets and tainted gifts.

“The Specialist Fraud Division of the CPS exists to make sure that people like Mr Day are brought to justice, to prosecute serious fraud, to protect the public and recover money for victims as best we can.”

Judge Batiste summed up Day’s activities in one brief phrase when he told him: “This was industrial scale dishonesty purely to fulfill your greed”.

He also gave commendations to Detective Sgt Stuart Donohue and financial expert for GMP, Ben Evans; and NHS Counter Fraud Authority senior investigator, Michael Meade for their ‘excellent work’ in an ‘exceptionally complex case’.

Mr Reid said: “It was a very difficult jigsaw to put together to try and get through Mr Day’s dishonesty. He camouflaged his bank account transactions. He would transfer money from a client account to his own but label it as money sent to HMRC to pay for whatever tax. All the jigsaw pieces had dishonest labels on them. It is a real achievement to get through all that and present a credible picture of what he actually did.”

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