Robert Freegard Robert Freegard already had a long history
of spreading lies before working as a bartender at a British pub in the early 1990s.
There, he crossed paths with a trio of students from nearby Harper Adams Agricultural College.
Going by the name Rob, he sparked a friendship with Maria, Sarah, and John, who were from
privileged backgrounds and looking for a bit of adventure in their lives.
They seemed to find what they were looking for as they learned more about the friendly
and mysterious bartender.
Rob started dating Maria, and he soon became friendly with John.
After building their trust for some time, he shared a big secret, and they promised
not to tell anyone about it.
He said he wasn’t a bartender at all but was working undercover as an MI5 agent.
For those unfamiliar with the secretive United Kingdom agency, it serves roughly the same
function as the FBI in America.
According to Rob, he was sent to the area to investigate terrorist plots by Irish Republican
Army.
Members of the notorious militia, he said, were behind multiple deaths – including
the death of John’s college buddy, which had been staged to look like an accident.
Early Life In retrospect, it’s easy to lay out the
intricately woven lies and misrepresentations that Rob made about himself.
As for his actual identity, however, it’s not always so easy to suss out the truth.
He was born in 1971 and hailed from Derbyshire, where his single mother raised him and his
sister.
They moved around a lot during his formative years and those who knew him as a student
described him as a mostly quiet, introverted kid.
Of course, he always seemed to find some joy in pulling pranks on his classmates, which
paved the way for the scams and schemes he hatched later on in life.
By the time he was 14, Rob had dropped out of school and spent the next few years forming
the basis for a life built on lies and deception.
When his teenage years ended, he was already leaving victims in his wake.
He struck up a relationship with a teacher several years older than him.
He began scamming her out of her money after convincing her that he was an independently
wealthy young man.
The teacher, Alison Hopkins, tried to break things off when she found out that he had
fraudulently used her credit card and accessed her bank account to pad his own pockets.
This was all after Alison agreed to extend a personal loan for 1,500 pounds that he had
no intention of ever repaying.
When Alison told Rob she wanted to end their relationship, he became outraged, and she
feared for her own safety.
Things got so bad that she relocated to a town more than 200 miles away.
Even that wasn’t enough to stop him, though; he soon tracked her down and broke into her
home to kidnap her.
Fortunately for Alison, he failed.
Rob’s ex shared the frightening story with her friends, who then told the local police.
As Rob faced criminal charges in early 1993, he found an opportunity to leave the area
and set off on a life on the run from the law.
His lies varied from victim to victim, but one type of scam seemed to be a recurring
theme throughout this period of his life.
Rob focused on finding women who would fall for his charm long enough for him to cheat
them out of their cash.
Humiliation Not all of Rob’s victims were vulnerable
women, however.
In one case, he befriended a jeweler in Sheffield and convinced the man that he was being recruited
for a secret mission.
However, this case was a bit different than most of Rob’s other crimes since he didn’t
seem to steal or defraud any money from Simon Young.
Instead, he developed a series of increasingly bizarre tests for Simon to complete in the
area.
For starters, he specified where his victim should travel, including the bus routes, staircases,
and even doors he should use during his daily activities.
A few of the humiliating missions Rob convinced Simon to complete involved reading a sexually
explicit publication while riding on the train and delivering a can opener to a bartender
at a local bar.
Although these and other related tests had no real purpose and were apparently just an
effort to embarrass his supposed friend, Rob told Simon that it was all part of a much
larger plan still in progress.
After cutting ties with Simon, Rob moved on to another victim.
He hired Elizabeth Bartholemew to provide childcare in 1996, and they were soon involved
in a romantic relationship.
That relationship devolved into degrading and abusive acts after Rob convinced Elizabeth
that she had been placed on an IRA hit list.
To test her loyalty and guarantee her safety, Rob instructed Elizabeth to perform acts that
he said had been dictated explicitly by his bosses in the secret agency.
He coerced her into a series of public stunts, including dressing up in ornate traditional
Indian garments or pretending to be a Jehovah’s Witness.
He also instructed her to fundamentally change how she looked and presented herself to others.
Finally, Rob exerted his influence over Elizabeth to the point that she agreed to change her
name.
Although he never admitted what he got out of pulling his victims’ strings to the point
that they agreed to degrade and embarrass themselves in public, it seems as if he was
acting on a deep-seated desire from his youth.
While frequently moving around as a child, it was almost impossible for Rob to form long-lasting
friendships with his schoolmates.
To create any lasting impressions on those around him, he felt as if he had to plan and
execute increasingly alarming stunts and pranks that would get a rise out of his chums while
embarrassing his victims.
As he grew older, his desire to be noticed never fully subsided.
In fact, it grew even more pronounced – as did his ability to develop bizarre and humiliating
hoaxes to watch those around him jump through hoops.
Along the way, he built up a convincing persona that helped him bridge the gap between being
a relatively harmless prankster and a cruel conman.
Get Rich Not satisfied with merely embarrassing his
victims, Rob became increasingly motivated by a desire to get rich through his elaborate
schemes.
Years after he met John and Sarah at the British pub and convinced them that he was a member
of MI5, his bigger plan fell into place.
Throughout the late 1990s, he acted on a scheme to extort his victims out of hundreds of thousands
of pounds.
Specifically, he convinced John to embark on a top-secret mission and successfully extorted
more than 300,000 pounds from his family.
Similarly, he hatched a scheme that allowed him to scam Sarah and her family out of another
200,000 pounds.
During this period, he also convinced Maria to marry him, adding her surname – Hendy
– to his name, officially becoming Robert Hendy-Freegard.
He used coercion and threats to keep the foursome intact, but he continued to look for other
victims throughout the same period.
One notable example was Leslie Gardner.
He met the woman at a nightclub and told her he worked for a nuclear fuel company.
Using this lie as the basis for his long con, he stole another 16,000 pounds from her.
A common tactic he used to defraud his victims involved forcing them to get odd jobs and
hand over their earnings to him.
He convinced them that he needed the money to continue offering secretive protection
against the evildoers intent on causing them harm.
Even as his wife and two children faced eviction and abject poverty, Rob continued living the
high life.
He initiated relationships with several other women and used variations of his familiar
scheme to extort a massive amount of money from multiple new victims.
Rob seemed to be pursuing a fantasy life akin to a James Bond thriller, but he clearly lacked
all of the positive traits that 007 brought to the table.
Instead, he focused solely on the character’s negative characteristics – lies and womanizing
– to carry out his criminally abusive plans.
Investigation Authorities launched a wide-ranging investigation
that spanned more than a year and a half and cost roughly 2.5 million pounds.
In the end, various agencies pieced together an intricate tale that Rob used to con different
individuals out of their money.
It took a while for investigators to determine the extent of a decade-long scheme.
But it all seemed worth it when prosecutors developed a case against him with a host of
criminal charges, including two counts of kidnapping, eight counts of criminal deception,
and 10 counts of theft.
In total, law enforcement officers found that he directly extorted money from at least eight
victims – seven women and one man.
The counts against him were enough to land him behind bars for the rest of his life upon
conviction.
Sentencing One of those victims was Kim Adams, who became
his fiancee in 2002 and lost roughly 22,000 pounds.
After realizing her mistake a bit too late, she refused to remain a helpless victim and
staged a scheme of her own that helped bring Rob to justice.
Thanks largely to Kim’s testimony during the trial, a court found Rob guilty in 2005
and sentenced him to life in prison.
Kim helped authorities track down a laundry list of incriminating evidence, including
a stockpile of passports belonging to women who were previously reported missing.
The investigation was enough to convince prosecutors that the case should go to trial – and even
most of his lawyers seemed uninterested in trying to defend his actions.
Three of four defense attorneys who initially accepted a job working on the case reconsidered.
They resigned due to what they described as a professional embarrassment.
The evidence presented in court was enough to score a conviction, but any victory for
his victims would be short-lived.
A few years later, he appealed his kidnapping charges by arguing that his victims were never
physically prevented from leaving him.
Although he was obviously using threats and fear tactics to keep them captive, a judge
ruled in his favor and granted his appeal, meaning he was released from prison in 2009.
Aftermath As expected, Rob returned to his familiar
ways after regaining his freedom.
He soon met Sandra Clifton and embarked on a whirlwind romance with the single mother.
After moving in with Sandra and her two children in 2012, Rob began exerting his influence
over the household, and the kids suspected that he was bad news.
Less than two years later, he convinced Sandra to leave her family to live a secretive life
with him.
Her ex-husband – and the father of her children – investigated the situation and discovered
that Rob, who was now introducing himself as David, had driven Sandra into financial
ruin.
Before long, the family learned about Rob’s criminal past.
Sandra’s son, now in his mid-20s, hasn’t seen his mother since he was a teen.
He's gone public with his effort to convince Sandra to leave the man who destroyed their
family.
He’s gone on multiple television programs to plead his case and assert that Rob is using
his power of persuasion to brainwash his mother.
It’s unclear what lies he’s using to keep his latest victim captive, but there’s no
doubt that his web continues to leave broken relationships and shattered dreams wherever
he goes.
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