Student jailed for cheating pools syndicate
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A man who cheated five members of a football pools syndicate out of a pounds 2.3m fortune has been jailed for 30 months.
Cameron Baxter, 27, pocketed the pounds 5 stake money he had collected from five Scottish Power workers instead of handing it over to Littlewoods. The syndicate had the only winning line that week and would have won a jackpot of more than pounds 2.3m.
When Baxter, from Stirling, appeared for sentence yesterday at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Ross, the Lord Justice Clerk, told him: "This is in many ways a tragic case not only for you and your family but for those affected by your crime. However, it does appear to me that it was a mean offence which involved a breach of trust."
Lord Ross said the amount of money which Baxter took had not been large, but the consequences for the victims were in some ways "catastrophic". He had "deprived them of winning a considerable sum of money".
However, Lord Ross accepted that there were mitigating factors. The court had heard that Baxter, a mature student at Stirling University, depended during the summer holidays last year on the pounds 35 a week he made as a pools collector.
He had got into financial difficulties after his car was stolen and had a couple of accidents with his family's car.
Baxter admitted forming a fraudulent scheme to obtain football pools stake money and to appropriate it to his own use when he appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh three weeks ago; that, while acting as a pools collector between 24 July and 10 September last year, he pretended to various people in Stirling that he would forward pools coupons and stake money on their behalf, and that he induced them to hand over completed coupons and stake money totalling pounds 216, embezzling the cash and failing to deliver the stakes and coupons to Littlewoods.
The five-man syndicate which missed out on the jackpot yesterday launched a court action to sue Littlewoods for the pounds 2.3m they would have won. Gordon Turner, John Ferguson, Donald McVean, Richard Syme and Owen Kelly, from Stirling, have raised pounds 30,000 to fund a private action, which was launched at the Court of Session in Edinburgh after Baxter was sentenced.
Cameron Fyfe, lawyer for the syndicate, said his clients believed Baxter was an agent of the pools company therefore it was liable for his actions.
However, Littlewoods has maintained previously that it did not employ collectors, but that they were agents of the clients.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments