Robert David Hendy-Freegard was sentenced today (6th September 2005) at Blackfriars Crown Court to life imprisonment at the end of an eight month trial. Found guilty of two charges of kidnap, ten of theft, five of obtaining a money transfer by deception and three procuring the execution of a valuable security, Hendy-Freegard deprived his victims of many years of their lives and used a variety of tactics to con those he claimed to love out of vast sums of money.

His downfall began two years ago when Chiswick based legal adviser, Caroline Cowper, reported him to police after he had threatened her with violence. She had been in a relationship with Hendy-Freegard and given him money to set up a scheme to lease cars but she eventually learned that he had conned her. When the police began their investigations they started to uncover an astonishing trail of deception stretching back 10 years. The investigation became a joint operation with the FBI who were also on Hendy-Freegard's trail because of suspicions about his relationship with an American child psychologist whose family had just won the lottery and were being forced to send money to Hendy-Freegard.

It emerged that Ms. Cowper was just one of a large number of victims. Like many she had first encountered him in a car showroom in this case the Normand Volkswagen dealership at the top of Chiswick High Road where Hendy-Freegard worked as a salesman. She bought a car from him and a relationship started in which Hendy-Freegard soon offered her a £6,500 engagement ring. She was unaware at the time that he had used the proceeds of the car she had traded in to pay for it and that he had several other 'fiancees' at the same time.

When she asked for the money for the traded in car Hendy-Freegard initially assured her that he was due a six-figure some for work that he had carried out for MI5. It was a year after the affair began that she discovered he had taken £14,000 out of her building society account bringing the total amount he extracted from her to over £40,000. She then bankrupted him by taking him to the small claims court and started to investigate his past which revealed the extent to which she wasn't the only one he had targeted. At this point she went to Hammersmith Police station and gave the details she had learnt to the police.

Hendy-Freegard's arrest in May 2003 followed a joint operation involving New Scotland Yard and the FBI. His own mother expressed her concern over the behaviour of her son to officers, and stated that she often wondered how he could afford the lifestyle he lived. He had told his mother that he worked in 'law enforcement' and his father, that he was employed by MI5.

Police believe that they may not have traced all of Hendy-Freegard's victims. One woman who he had first approached when she was a student in 1993 had believed for ten years that she was in danger of assassination by the IRA. She was found by police working as a domestic cleaner in Chiswick. She had believed she was in a witness protection scheme under the control of Hendy-Freegard. She handed over all of her money including wages in order to finance 'the mission' and was told that the police would repay it in full when the danger was over. She had been forced to work in hotels, fish shops, pubs, hotels, and as a cleaner. She was permitted to contact her family only when further funds were needed to "pay the police". She had also been forced to sleep rough and devise various scenarios to extract more money out of her family.

The latest trial was the third concerning this case. The previous two had had to be stopped when Hendy-Freegard's legal teams had claimed to be 'professionally embarrassed' in representing him.RHF has no discernable assets. It appears that he has spent all of his criminal proceeds on a millionaire lifestyle of Rolex watches, top of the range BMWs, handmade suits and shoes, and other everyday 'James Bond' expenditure.

DS Bob Brandon, from the MPS Specialist Crime Directorate said, "I am delighted with today's result as I am sure are all of Hendy- Freegard's victims. This man ruthlessly deprived them of many valuable years of their lives by cruelly making them and their families believe that they were in mortal danger. Furthermore, he used a variety of cruel tactics to con hundreds of thousands of pounds from his victims. He lived a millionaire lifestyle while forcing them to live in abject poverty. This has been a long and complicated investigation which Hendy-Freegard refused to co-operate with from the start."
 

September 7, 2005