Original subtitles

Blind dates is not something that I've ever done.

Yeah, I really fell for him.

Romance fraudsters actually do this for a living.

This is the man that I love.

"I can lend you enough just to sort out the cash flow problem."

It's really substantial, 14,£000.

I had no idea she had paid for this property.

"Mum, you don't have this much money.

"What are you doing?"

He has manipulated her, he's groomed her.

Andy is my future, my life.

She can't get away from him.

Bailiffs came to recover money.

That was the turning point for me.

My best friend had been brainwashed.

"We need to nail this guy."

This is all one horrendous mistake!

In a small quiet town on the south coast of England

lives single mum of two, Louise.

I live in East Sussex,

alone with my dog.

I've worked in HR now for about 30 years altogether.

And so, have a really keen interest

in anything to do with people.

I have a son and a daughter.

Both are grown-up.

The father of my children and I divorced 25 years ago.

Since then, have not had any significant relationships at all.

I am very independent,

and didn't need somebody else in my life.

Me and my sister always joked that she would be like

a recluse, always at home.

As time has gone on, I was kind of keen

for my mum to find someone.

You don't want people to grow old and lonely.

This was a feeling also shared by Lou's best friend, Tanya.

I made friends with Lou, 2009.

Lou's children had flown the nest.

I think I've appeared in her life at the right time -

as well as her appearing basically in my life at the right time.

Tanya and I click on many different levels.

You know, we both enjoy cooking.

We've developed a really strong relationship,

that she knows me inside out.

Tanya started to talk to me about,

"Do you know what? There's somebody at work,

"I think would be a really good match for you."

Andy was a consultant where I worked,

at a manufacturing company.

He would come into my office and stop and have a chat,

talk about his family and his daughter being up in Oxford,

and his father dying of cancer.

And the way he was talking about his father

touched a nerve with me,

because I'd lost my mother through cancer,

and I saw something in him, and I thought,

"This is a family man. Caring man."

And I thought, "Oh, I wonder..."

Tanya suggests setting Louise up on a blind date with Andy.

I was convinced it wasn't going to work.

Blind dates is not something that I've ever done.

Ever.

I said to Lou, "Trust me, it'll be fine.

"It'll be relaxed!"

Louise joins Tanya and her husband at the pub

where she's introduced to Andrew Camfield.

It's a little bit awkward.

He kisses me, just to say hello.

And we sit round the table together.

Conversation flowed.

He talked about the fact that he had got grown-up children

and what they did,

and at one point, he winked at me.

And I thought, "Ooh, he's a bit of a cheeky, funny person.

"He's really quite...yeah."

After the evening finished,

he told me it was lovely to have met me.

He was going to head off back to Oxford that evening.

He was going to move into a new home

that he was renting in the Cotswolds,

and perhaps, he could get my number.

And I said, "Yeah, that would be really nice."

A long-distance romance quickly develops.

Our messaging just quickly ramped up.

"What are you doing for Christmas?"

"This is my Christmas tree I've just put up,

"and this is my log fire."

He was setting the scene of a home.

And I was thinking,

"Gosh, potentially, I could be part of that."

Three weeks after they first meet,

Andy visits Louise's house for their first one-to-one date.

He had bought me flowers.

And then, we spent the entire evening chatting and laughing.

He was so easy-going.

He talked about cooking, his dog -

obviously, I've got my dog.

We had quite a lot in common.

Later that evening, Andy becomes surprisingly vulnerable.

Andy talked about the loss of his father.

He had been very close.

Yeah, he had a few tears.

I was touched by how open he had been.

By crying about the loss of his father,

it shows Andy's vulnerability -

which ups the Ante, in terms of progressing the relationship.

It's also termed as "trauma bonding".

So, Louise will feel compelled psychologically to assist Andy,

to want to protect him early on.

In the weeks that follow,

Andy seems eager to impress Louise.

He was quite quick to mention,

"I'd love for you to come up, see the cottage where I'm at."

I was quite excited about the whole thing.

It was winter.

Beautiful log fire he'd got.

His dog, my dog seemed to really hit it off.

We would have lazy breakfast.

It was a complete step into a romantic world.

He presented a financially-stable person with no money worries.

By showing that he's a family man,

h's financially stable, h's got a nice house,

he loves his dog, we can see Andy building these layers

of credibility and legitimacy.

And making her fall fast and hard in love with him is

a really important part of that long game.

Two months into dating,

Andy's efforts to make Louise fall for him appear to pay off.

Valentine's Day, he told me he loved me...

..and I told him I loved him.

Things were travelling really fast.

I was quite surprised, but delighted.

Even I was surprised at how quickly

she's melted into this relationship.

I was happy, my best friend's happy.

Yeah, I really fell for him.

Louise soon introduces Andy to her children.

He was kind of very imposing.

Walking up to you, saying hello, firm handshake.

A typical kind of snake-oil salesman vibe I got.

Didn't have a career as such.

He was a businessman.

And that involved various different things.

He had his own recruitment firm,

and he's working on some kind of app for real estate agents.

My mum was super happy.

She was smiling like a Cheshire cat, ear-to-ear.

And that kind of worry or protection mechanism kind of just vanished.

Andy and Louise are spending more and more time together

when Andy receives some big news.

He is due to inherit from his father's will.

His father had been a senior officer in the Army,

and all indications were that it would be quite a bit of money.

Andy learns he has been given a share of his father's flat,

as well as £20,000 -

but there is a delay with the money.

The problem was around finalising the stocks and shares

that his father had.

Andy admits that his income as a consultant is often unpredictable,

so this delay in receiving his inheritance

has left him financially short.

He was going to have a shortfall of about 2-3 grand.

This part of the con artist plan is known as the set-up -

because this is where the information is planted.

He's not asking her for money,

and she's concerned about him.

It means the onus is on her to approach him

and ask if he needs help.

I'm thinking, "This is silly. This is the man that I love."

I said to him, "I can lend you enough just to sort out

"the cash flow problem.

"I've got this 0% card - put it on there."

He said, "That would be so helpful."

So, I lend him £3,000.

He said, "I'll pay you back with interest."

So, there was no reason to question

that that would not just, in a matter of time, be sorted.

Little did we know just how far wrong we were.

Three months into their relationship,

Louise has fallen hard for Andy Camfield,

and has already lent him over £3,000.

But another problem arises that will test the limits

of Louise's generosity.

Andy told me that he and his ex-wife

jointly had two time-share

apartments in Malta.

He showed me pictures, and they were beautiful!

What was unfortunate was that his ex-wife had fallen behind

on the mortgage payment.

Andy suggests that he buys his ex-wife out of the property.

He negotiates a sum of £14,000.

The catch is it has to be paid by the end of the month.

He "ums" and "ahs" because the probate hasn't come through yet.

I say to him, "Well we could do it through my credit cards."

This is a bit more, but actually,

I've seen all the documents.

And he said, "Oh, you are so special!"

And, you know, "It will be ours.

"Actually, we'll call it ours!"

This is a much larger sum of money,

but this isn't giving the money to somebody.

It's actually paying into the relationship.

By investing this, it solidifies her position

as officially Andy's,

and Andy is officially hers.

I did find it a little surprising, with Lou's language,

in the way that she spoke about the Malta property.

Even though they'd only been together, say, less than a year,

she would say "our" property.

I had no idea, no knowledge that she had actually

paid for this property.

A few months after loaning him £14,000,

Andy repays Louise the original £3,000 she'd leant him earlier.

That just shows you how genuine he is,

to think about my needs.

This is a classic tactic.

By giving money back early on in the relationship,

you're then sowing the seed that

you'll give money back in the future.

And you can ask for more money, more quickly,

and higher sums, as well.

But that's not the last of the loans.

With the unpredictable nature of his work,

and further delay with his inheritance,

Louise continues to reach for her wallet to help Andy.

I had great sympathy for him,

in that everything seemed to be going wrong.

He was so apologetic.

He would say things like,

"Nobody has ever understood me like you do.

"My family always said, 'Andy you just need to get a...

"'..a salaried job.

"'Stop messing around being a consultant.'"

I'm responding by saying,

"Well, that's the nature of consultancy work.

"It's feast and famine."

And I would lend him something to tide him over.

Andy was keeping a spreadsheet of all of the amounts

that I had lent him.

It was perfectly clear he was going to pay me back.

But it's becoming a little bit more difficult

to meet the minimum payments.

With over £18,000 now lent to Andrew,

Louise turns to her family for help.

My mum messages me, saying,

"Hey, would it possible to borrow £300?"

I thought nothing of it.

I had it, so I sent it over to her straight away.

And this became more and more frequent.

I kind of sat there, feeling like a question mark.

"Why does she need the money now?

"Why all the cash flow problems?"

As a "thank you" to Louise for helping him through a rough patch,

and so sure that his large inheritance will arrive imminently,

Andy purchases a lavish gift.

He had booked an amazing holiday for £17,000.

First-class service to the Maldives!

He said, "It will be a very, very special holiday.

"And I would like to buy that holiday for you."

And I think, "OK, if that's what he wants to do...

"..then that would be quite nice."

Louise, at this point, has put a lot of money into the relationship.

But, by Andy putting this huge amount of money into

this lavish holiday also shows that he's paying into

the relationship, too. It seems very equal.

And I do remember being a little surprised,

cos it was an awful lot of money.

He's paid for that himself.

So, he's obviously got income coming in from his consultancy work.

Andy convinces Louise this is a treat they both deserve,

and any debts will soon be sorted through the upcoming inheritance.

They've been in a relationship for a while now,

and she believes that inheritance is going to come

to both of them as a couple.

And Andy really plays on that in order to get money from her.

At no time did it cross my mind ever

that I wasn't - it wasn't going to be rectified,

and that everything would just fall into place.

But when the time nears for the couple to jet off,

an unprecedented event gets in the way.

Come early 2020,

we've got Covid going on.

Andy makes the decision to defer the holiday.

There's further bad news for Andy

when he's evicted from his rental cottage in the Cotswolds.

The landlord wants it back to sit out the lockdown.

Andy and I agree he could come and live at my house.

So, essentially, Andy's now moved in with Lou.

He sets himself up at my dining room table.

He's on Zoom calls.

I would go in a different room, and I would do my work.

As Andy settles into the house,

Louise's son, Matt, begins to notice a change in his mum.

She was always with Andy.

Andy was even on our WhatsApp chats.

They were one unit, almost.

Andy was always there,

overriding my mum's kind of outwardness, I would say.

She was a lot less open and engaging in conversations.

When Andy moves into Louise's,

she can't get away from him,

and he can manipulate her in person,

day to day, day and night.

It's starting to look as though it's having a negative effect on her.

Months into lockdown and after a long period of bad luck,

some bittersweet news arrives.

Andy took a phone call.

When he came back, he's clearly a bit shocked.

He said his godfather had died.

"And I've also just been told I'm inheriting a third of his estate."

He's had tears, absolutely big tears about this.

The weird thing about it was that he didn't know his own godfather.

Why would someone leave their godson,

that they've not seen for 50 years, all of this money?

With Andy's first inheritance still being tied up in legal delays,

this second inheritance could solve their money worries.

We started to talk about,

"Well, should he invest it in property?"

Andy suggests putting the money into a home

that they could buy together.

He said, "I'm including you in this

"because this would be our forever home.

"And I will buy it, cash."

I thought "Wow, blimey."

I don't know what to do with my - you know, if I'm not going to live

in my home, what do I do with my home?

You know, do whatever you want.

What with your income and my income,

we're now talking a lot of money.

When Andy get news of this second inheritance,

he makes a pledge to pay that money into a dream home

for them both together.

Andy really plays on this, on this idea,

this normative ideals of husband and wife, and saying,

"Well, actually, we do give money to each other.

"We are all one relationship together.

"Our money is all the same pot."

And it's playing into this idea that later on, they'll get married,

this is his future, they've got this property together,

the inheritance is coming in -

and there's nothing there to hit the brakes.

Committed to their future,

Andy and Louise look at dream properties.

Andy found a house really very quickly.

And we met the estate agent, and he showed us around.

"Wow!" I just thought, "This is amazing."

Andy said, "Well, if you're happy, I'm going to put an offer on this."

And he told the estate agent it'd be a cash buy,

and the estate said, "Yep, absolutely fine.

"Do you want me to come and sort out your house, Lou?"

Lou's really happy, you know, getting so excited.

What are they going to do to the house?

Buying furniture online, putting it in the basket.

We go to the house, we measure up,

we download all the manuals for the kitchen equipment.

We look we look at making an extension to the garage.

We're installing a dog parlour.

They planned it down to the T,

down to what broadband package they're going to get.

My mum was kind of over the moon.

She could see her life progressing in a good way.

That, for me, was like, you've won in life at the moment.

The way Andy was talking about the house,

I did have concerns.

I can't put my finger on it. "Something's not right.

"Something's not right."

The estate agent came, and he looked at my house, and he said,

"This would go overnight as a three-bedroom starter home.

"You know, it wouldn't be a problem at all."

Driving up with Lou, I said to her,

"Please tell me your house is OK,

"that you're not selling your house."

She confirmed to me, "It's all fine, it's all fine."

I've got to accept her word for this.

But she was sort of closing down on me,

and wasn't the usual, open Lou.

Something didn't feel 100% right.

For now, Louise decides to hold off selling her house.

Meanwhile, the rescheduled Maldives holiday is fast approaching -

but disaster strikes again.

Andy told me he'd got major cysts on his eardrums.

It was causing him a lot of pain,

and the doctor said, "You can't fly."

And he certificated him not to fly.

I turned round to my husband, and I did say...

I don't know, something in the back of my mind

was just making me question,

did this holiday ever really exist?

With the holiday cancelled,

Louise is still juggling her finances to support Andy.

I had several credit cards.

And so, when you looked at them individually,

"Oh, that's six grand there,

"three grand there" -

you know, you wouldn't see it as a massive sum.

I was managing it, in my mind.

However, to help out,

Andy tells Louise he'll have the holiday repaid to her account.

So, he gave them my bank details

to pay it directly into my bank account.

Never came. Nothing.

By now, Louise has borrowed over £40,000 across seven credit cards

to support Andy.

I was getting more anxious about not being able to pay

the minimum payments on the credit cards.

He was telling me, "I'm transferring it back."

And then, it would never arrive.

There would always be some form of error.

I've lent him all this money on the strength of

what he was telling me.

You know, it was all written out that it was there.

Andy is my future.

We are about to move into the house of our dreams.

I'm making plans.

I've boxed up stuff - but still, we've not completed.

How could you be buying a house if none of this was true?

Two years into their relationship,

Andy and Louise are still waiting to complete on their dream home,

which should have happened weeks ago.

DOORBELL RINGS

Things begin to feel even more off when, one morning,

Louise gets some unwelcome visitors.

Out of the blue, bailiffs came to recover money

and they ask for Andy.

It was for a debt of £7,000.

He says, "Oh, cos I've moved out of the Cotswolds,

"it's just got overdue."

And these bailiffs turning up were videoing the conversation

from the word go, and timing it.

It's a debt, it has to be paid, and they're clock-watching -

and every 15 minutes, it goes up by £400.

You're under a lot of pressure.

I'm shaking.

We can't let them in, but they can force entry.

I'm worried about Andy.

I don't know what to do.

So, that's when I rang Matthew.

PHONE RINGS

I get a call from my mum.

"There's bailiffs at my door,"

and she's in absolute tears.

I did say to Matthew,

"I'm going to need quite a bit of money, quite quickly."

And I distinctly remember Andy in the background, saying,

"It's seven-and-a-half grand."

My first instinct was just to sort my mum out,

don't query it.

Just get the pressure off my mum.

But this £7,500 is going to be a big sacrifice for Matt.

Me and the missus were planning a wedding,

so we've been saving and saving, and saving.

And obviously, I needed that money for getting married.

And giving that away was heart-wrenching, in a way.

But the overriding factor was to help my mum.

For Louise to have to ask her son

to dip into his wedding funds to pay off her boyfriend's debt,

it really shows the level of coercion and psychological hold

that Andy has over her.

And this happens a lot in domestic abuse,

where the victim feels responsible for the financial, psychological,

physical wellbeing of the perpetrator.

With the money from Matt,

Louise and Andy settle with the bailiffs.

I said to Andy, "OK.

"Is there anything else that's going to come knocking on my door?"

"No. There's nothing else."

Andrew promises to pay Louise's son back.

I was content that that's exactly what would happen.

Weeks pass, but there's no sign of Matt's money.

So, the initial agreement was I'll lend Andy the money

for two-and-a-half weeks, and he'll pay me back.

He didn't pay me back.

He started making really out-there excuses,

like his bank account had been flagged for fraud,

or the bank didn't have enough cash.

This is absolute classic.

He's saying to Matt,

"This is not me against you, it is us against the banks

"who are not moving quickly enough."

Andy positions himself as the same as Matt,

as really needing that money,

and feeling really embarrassed that he hasn't given Matt the money.

Months into chasing Andy for money,

an unexpected visitor cements Matt's suspicions.

My sister called me and said that Andy's ex-wife had been round,

demanding that Andy gives her credit card back.

And it was at this point, my sister said,

"My brother's just lent some money to Andy."

And Andy's ex-wife said,

"You're never seeing that money again."

That was the turning point for me.

My back is up.

Everything he's saying, I'm now challenging.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this,

for the sake of my mum and for me.

It's only until someone from the outside gives that bolt

from the blue that you start to sit up and look back

through all of those messages,

all of those interactions, and see them with fresh eyes.

Louise's son, Matt, begins investigating Andrew's claims -

starting with their dream house.

Andy had told my mum that, after many weeks of delays,

that they'd finally exchanged.

I then called up the estate agents, explained my situation.

I said, "I know there's some boundaries, but just hear me out."

I mentioned Andy by name, and they said,

"Yep, that's the buyer.

"I think he's defrauding us out of some money."

And they said, "You know what? Glad you said this,

"because in two weeks, we had this scheduled

"to come back on the open market,

"because there's something not right with this guy."

So, I said, fine.

That's confirmation from me that they haven't exchanged.

Let's see what else he's been doing.

Call up solicitors, they said, "I can confirm he is a client.

"And I can't tell you anything, but read between the lines."

It's very obvious that he'd not given them any money.

That is another nail in the coffin for Andy.

As evidence mounts for Matt,

he wonders how Andrew could be short on cash when he recently started

a new high-flying job.

He's been telling my family that he works for this big

wholesale distribution company as the financial director.

I then called up a store and say,

"Can you check for this person?"

And they said they couldn't find him.

I then emailed their HR, who said,

"Look, no, we've never heard of this guy,

"and we've never worked with him."

Straight away, I'm thinking, "This guy is a con man."

He's lying about the job. He's lying about the house.

What else is he lying about?

How deep does this rabbit hole go?

Matthew gives me a ring, and he says,

"I need to talk to you about money."

And I said, "That's fine, come on round, Andy's here.

"We can all talk about it."

And he said, "No, I don't want Andy to be there.

And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God."

Now I feel sick.

And he says, "Come down to the car park at the supermarket."

I just pulled her to the side in the car park, and I said,

"Mum, something fundamentally is not right."

Matt reveals his findings about Andy to his mum.

Matthew is trying to tell me, "This is a bad one,"

and I'm saying, "It's not. You just got it wrong."

I'm in a very difficult situation now.

Andy is my future, my life...

..and yet, these are my children.

I said to her, "Mum, how much money do you have tied up with this guy?"

She said to me that she had no money tied up with him.

So, I was kind of relieved at this point.

But Louise was lying.

I'm just totally overwhelmed.

Don't know what to do.

STAMMERING: I was really... in love with him.

Everything he said, I totally believed.

Louise Tries to make excuses for Andy.

It's because of this coercion.

What Andy has done is created a false reality.

And, if Louise turns around and believes that,

everything that's happened in the last year or two has been a lie.

And psychologically, the harm in that is huge.

If I can prove that this solicitor has said this,

and that money is coming from that probate here, and then...

TEARFULLY: ..and then, it can all go away,

and we can all walk away and forget this really unpleasant situation.

Louise returns home to ask Andy about the money.

So, I talk to Andy,

and he says I've got absolutely nothing to worry about.

You know, there's noth... there's no problems here.

He says, "What I'll do is I'll go and get some cash out the bank,

"take it to Matthew."

Andrew sets off to get the £7,500 that Matt previously lent him

to pay off the bailiffs.

He called me up to say he'd got money,

he's en route to my house.

He's saying, "Oh, the traffic's really, really bad,"

he's going to be an extra hour.

Another hour went by, and I couldn't get hold of him.

I said to my mum, "This is make-or-break for him.

"Where is he?"

Oh, I'm getting more and more anxious.

Matthew's getting more and more, "Told you so."

At that point, Tanya walks in.

"Hi!" You know, walked in, "Hi, yeah, yeah, how's everyone?"

Get the dogs, greeted by the dogs,

you know, "You all right?"

"Yeah, how you doing? I'm fine, fine, yeah,

"absolutely fine." And she can just see.

"Are you sure?"

How do you start a story like that?

"Talk to me, just talk to me."

And she kneels in front of me, and she holds my hand,

and I'm thinking... SHE SOBS

"I don't know what I'm going to do now, because I'm at

"a point now where I can't take this any more."

And I've gotta say - I've just got to say it.

"So, Andy owes money."

Lou's saying to me, "He's borrowed Matt's wedding fund money.

"And Matt was actually getting married in literally

"about three weeks' time."

"And he's on his way to see Matthew, and he's not there yet."

"We've had the Bailiffs, you know, we had to borrow some money."

"I don't know what to do."

"Phew! Wh-What?"

I was being hit... with so many facts.

It was like, "Yep, borrowed some money from Matt.

"Borrowed some money from mum and Dad.

"Borrowed some money from Kimberly."

Hell, if I'd have known this...

Now, it's very easy to say, "How could this happen?"

But this has gone on for years.

He has manipulated her, he has groomed her,

and you get to a position where you're making decisions

that seem good and reasonable,

but actually, they're against you financially.

Anyone can become a victim of this kind of fraud.

It's not about intelligence, it's just about love.

As Louise tells all, a text comes in from Andy.

He sends a message to say, "I've had to pull over.

"Feeling really, really unwell, and I've called an ambulance."

The next thing we know, Andy's in an ambulance

at a petrol station halfway between our house and Matt's house.

And Matthew is sending messages,

I told you, "Mum, I told you,

"this is just another part of his story."

Oh, my God, what's...

What's happening? I don't know what's happening.

I was, "That's it," you know, "we're getting in the car."

When I drove to this location and saw the ambulance,

I was kind of like, "Oh, OK.

"Maybe there's some truth to this, just maybe."

We've got to the petrol station.

Matt's there. There's now me, Lou standing outside.

The ambulance people said that he was absolutely fine.

And then, he opens the back of the ambulance, he came walking out.

The first thing he did was pull my mum to the side,

away from absolutely everyone.

And I said to him straight away, "Where is my money?"

"Where is my money?"

"Where's this cash that you've got for me?"

He said the money was in the bank,

and he was on the way over to me to explain what's going on.

And then, it all seems to kick off -

people shouting and accusations flying around, calling him liar.

And I'm thinking, "This is all one horrendous mistake."

In the end, the paramedics said that they were concerned enough

not to put him back into an environment that was stressful,

and it was wrong for them to leave him there with us.

So, as a precaution for Andy's health,

the paramedics decide to take him to hospital.

After the whole ambulance incident,

seeing my mum the way she was, it was just horrible,

because I've effectively torn down her perfect little world.

My mum was still distraught, and I remember thinking,

"What else is bugging you here, Mum?"

I then asked her again. I said,

"Mum, how much money have you lent Andy?"

I started to say, "I've been subbing Andy

"until that point, to some big tune of over 50 grand.

I was like, "Oh, my God, how could this happen?

I was almost in denial myself.

I was like, "Mum, you don't have this money.

"What are you doing?"

The first thing that I had to do was report this to the police.

What Matt actually said to the police originally was,

"I think my mum's being conned,"

and it went from there.

One of the important things is to convince the victim that

they are actually a victim.

In Louise's case, she really just wanted to believe

that he was genuine, and that this was all a big mistake.

She didn't recognise herself as a victim.

Police have been told, and I'm beginning to hear

this massive story that he's been spinning me.

Can't theoretically be true,

and yet, my heart is there with it,

saying, "It is true."

It was weird, this strong,

intelligent woman had been brainwashed.

With Andy in hospital and the police now involved,

Louise's family try to make her see

that she's the victim of an elaborate con.

It would've been typical for Louise to be told not to have

any contact with Andrew during the period

while he's under investigation,

especially with her family also being involved

as potential victims themselves.

I said, "I'm so worried that you will go back to him.

I said, "I'm telling you now that if you do go back to him...

"..you will lose us."

Despite the pleas from her loved ones,

Louise is still under Andy's spell

and collects him from hospital a few hours later.

He comes back, packs his stuff up.

I'm a wreck, he's a wreck...

..and he's gone.

I don't know where he goes.

This guy is on the run. What is he doing?

He's taken my mum's money. He's taken my money.

What else is he capable of?

We need to nail this guy.

Days after he's released from hospital,

Andrew Camfield has taken off with Louise's money.

There's not much I can do.

Ultimately, I have to leave it up to the police.

But catching a con artist is not so easy.

Fraud is a very complex crime to investigate.

And that invariably causes quite a delay between

the initial report and the arrest.

Police spend months combing through anything they can get on Andrew.

The investigation involved seizing a lot of documentation

and taking multiple statements from different parties.

The police wanted to know every detail about our relationship,

and about how the money came to change hands -

and evidence for every single bit of that.

Away from Andrew's influence,

Louise begins to see who the man she loves really is.

When I'm beginning to hear, "This is not true...

"..that's not true..."

..it occurs to me,

"I wonder what he's has got in all his private papers

"in the garage.

"Do you know what? I'm going to have a look through this."

I find there's a document that says,

"I hereby relinquish all rights to the Malta apartments,"

dated February 9th - just after I met him.

Louise had previously given Andrew £14,000 to buy out

his ex-wife's Malta properties.

And they actually turned out to be owned solely by his ex-wife.

There was also various spreadsheets where he had demonstrated to me,

"This is what I owe you there,

"I owe you that, and then, I had that amount of interest

"and this is how much the new house is going to be,"

you know, all laid out.

He actually wrote down a lot of his own lies and deceit.

We looked into the claims that Andrew made.

He claimed he was due probate from his father's will -

he was due nothing from his father's will.

He claimed he was CEO of a company.

We spoke to the company,

and they had no record of him ever working there.

He claimed that he was due some probate from his godfather's will.

Turned out, his godfather hadn't actually died,

and he wasn't even in that will anyway.

Stacking it all up like that, in black and white,

I had no choice but to realise he had lied to me...

..probably from day one.

SHE SNIFFLES

I'm not a stupid person.

When you look at these things on the television, and people say

"Oh, I sent £100,000 over to somebody I've never met."

I knew Andy.

I loved him completely.

And to have that destroyed... devastated, really.

The damage that's inflicted psychologically

on victims of romance fraud,

somebody like Louise, is absolutely catastrophic.

The impact on self-esteem,

on being able to trust people in the future,

of any kind of relationship, with being able to trust yourself

is absolutely destroyed.

Nine months since the start of the investigation,

and with a strong case against Andrew,

the police set out to find him.

I didn't really know where he had gone,

and the police would obviously have to track him down.

All this time, Andy has got no idea that

the police are looking at him,

and where he is, and what he's doing.

After monitoring Andy's digital footprint,

police hone in on a town just ten miles away.

Andrew was located at a hotel in Eastbourne

and arrested in March 2022.

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

This wave of relief just came over me,

knowing that there was the potential to get some justice.

Andrew continues to plead his innocence,

and so, is brought to trial.

The date for the trial was set,

and then, that was when Louise started to get nervous.

I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, I might have to take stand.

"I might have to personally give my own evidence.

"I might have to see him."

But on the first day of trial,

the overwhelming evidence convinces Andrew

to change his plea to guilty.

Relief, absolute relief. It's over.

The judge said that this was a prolonged and sophisticated fraud,

and he had systematically defrauded Louise by stringing her along

with an elaborate set of lies.

Andrew was eventually convicted of three counts of fraud

and one count of theft.

Andrew Camfield is sentenced

to seven years in prison in May 2022.

Andy would sometimes just put on

certain little different personas,

and I used to say to him,

"Oh, you'd be absolutely brilliant onstage!"

And, yeah, now I understand,

this man really was an actor.

A great actor. He deceived us all.

He's an absolute bottom-feeder.

And preying on people like that is just disgusting.

Over their two years together,

Louise gave Andrew Camfield over £70,000.

She still has a £41,000 debt on her credit cards,

and her credit rating is severely impacted.

The fact that Matthew volunteered his wedding fund...

I'm so sad about that.

Louise has since paid just £2,000 back to her son.

And he tells me, "Do you know what?

"It doesn't really matter. It's only money."

You know, they're married, and they had a lovely wedding.

When I reflect back on all the promises he made,

I now know that they were never going to be true.

It's left me in a complete mess.

I would never trust somebody ever again to get that close to me.

He's destroyed all of that.

It's one of the most cruel and heartless crimes,

because they are preying on that victim's hopes and dreams.

They're trying to build a future - and in fact,

they're blowing apart their future.

How do you minimise the damage he's left behind him?

The strength that I've gained from Tanya and the children,

as well, and my parents, and saying "Do you know what?

"It doesn't really no matter what's happened,

"because we love you, and we'll be there for you."

That's just that's just worth everything.

Everything.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media