Published Date: 03 February 2009
A Fenland solicitor's clerk who cheated dozens of bereaved residents out of their inheritance and was jailed for four years has been stripped of over half-a-million pounds worth of assets.
Philip Nightingale (58) pleaded guilty to 13 charges of deception, with 30 further offences taken into consideration. The assets were confiscated when he appeared before Cambridge Crown Court on Friday, January 29.
The father-of-three had £503,502 worth of assets confiscated from him by the court, including a house in Dagless Way, March, valued at about £100,000.
Over a 20-year period from 1986, Nightingale had stolen money from 32 estates, setting up bogus accounts and cheating beneficiaries of their full inheritance.
All of the money recovered will be used to recompense the insurers who have sought to reimburse all living victims or their beneficiaries.
Nightingale had stolen from clients while dealing with wills as a former solicitor's clerk at March firm Bowser, Ollard & Bentley.
Cambridgeshire economic crime unit Crown advocate William Giles says Nightingale had committed a "terrible breach of trust" against his clients and employer.
"There was no motive other than greed and keeping up with the Joneses. Bowsers are a very well established family firm. There is no suggestion at all that anyone else there was involved."
In one case, Nightingale had abused his position as a trustee of a trust set up in the 1930s and defrauded the deceased woman's adopted daughter. The adopted daughter had not been entitled to keep the house under the terms of the trust and the home was meant to pass back to other relatives.
But Nightingale had told the adopted daughter that for a one off fee of £40,000 she could keep the house. He took the money and forged documents to the Land Registry to back up his deception, thinking no one would find out. The cheque was disguised as a land sale.
Nightingale used the ill-gotten gains from two decades of deception to put his three children through university and take the family on vacations, Mr Giles said.
"He siphoned off about £30,000 a year over a 20-year period. He lived, to the untutored eye, a thoroughly ordinary life – only he had twice as much money as he should have."
In total Nightingale had defrauded his victims out of £714,062.
After receiving a letter from HM Revenue & Customs, querying unpaid taxes from money held in an offshore account, Nightingale voluntarily went to Wisbech Police Station in February 2008, confessing to his crimes.
The economic crime unit will continue to pursue Nightingale following his release from prison, Mr Giles says.
"If he's fortunate enough to come into money or wins the Lottery, we'll just invite the court to re-assess his assets. Effectively he still owes around £450,000 to his dying day. This case demonstrates Cambridgeshire's commitment to ensuring that anybody who profits from crime is made to pay."
Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 some of the assets seized from criminals are returned to the agencies involved in the confiscation process. The money is then reinvested to boost asset recovery – so more of criminals' cash can be seized in future.
The Huntingdon-based economic crime unit is a joint collaboration between Police and the Crown Prosecution Unit. Cambridgeshire's the only county in England and Wales to employ a fulltime lawyer to exclusively work alongside Police and financial investigators to strip criminals of their assets.
Mr Giles says: "This case is just a snapshot of the ongoing work in Cambridgeshire to ensure that crime doesn't pay. We are making asset recovery a priority when anybody commits an offence from which they've benefited."
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