Howard Walmsley

Howard Walmsley

Howard Walmsley is a painter and decorator from Intake, Doncaster who claimed that he had won £8.4 million playing the National Lottery in a bid to stop his wife from leaving him. In 2001, he was jailed for three years, after admitting to the offences of deception and false accounting.

Background

Walmsley worked as painter and decorator in South Yorkshire who ran into financial difficulties due to living beyond his means. When his wife first left him, he developed several relationships with various women customers and borrowed money from them which he did not repay, going so far as to discuss buying property with one of them, who gave him £8,000.

Walmsley was reported to have on one occasion entered a Jaguar garage, informing staff that he had won £4 million on the lottery. Walmsley wrote cheques totalling £123,000 in payment for goods from the garage that subsequently bounced.

Walmsley told his wife of farmhouse in Derbyshire worth £300,000 that he intended to buy for her and commissioned an architect to draw up plans for building work to improve the property.

Arrest and Trial

Walmsley was arrested in 1999, when he told police that he had won £8.4 million, before later admitting he was being dishonest and that he had in fact not won the lottery. He went on to admit a further 13 offences. In 2001, he was jailed for three years, after admitting to the offences of deception and false accounting.

In Popular Culture

In 2004 a one off film based on Walmsley's deceit, Can't Buy Me Love starring Martin Kemp and Michelle Collins was shown on ITV1

References

Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Walmsley