Britain’s cruellest romance conman jailed for a SECOND time

Handsome, 6ft 3in tall and an architect besides, when David Cohen’s profile got here up on the Plenty of Fish courting web site, Lise Johansen had no hesitation in swiping proper.

The 12 months was 2018 and the then 55-year-old mom of two was not lengthy out of a 25-year marriage. ‘When I first noticed David, I favored the look of him,’ she advised the Mail completely final week.

‘First of all we swapped telephone numbers after which we organized to satisfy. And it did not take lengthy earlier than it developed right into a relationship. It was mutual, or at the very least that was what I assumed. I wanted someone to carry my hand, a companion to share issues with, I wanted to be near someone — that was what I used to be searching for.’

Unfortunately, as an alternative of discovering the person of her goals, Lise ended up strolling right into a nightmare that has value her her well being, wealth and happiness.

Because the person she met on that courting app turned out to be one among Britain’s cruellest conmen. His actual title, it might finally emerge, was David Checkley and his declare to be an architect was as false because the pretence that he was her loyal companion.

‘He hasn’t completed a day’s work in his life aside from defrauding folks,’ Sharon Shearer, one other of his former victims advised me final week. ‘I dubbed him ‘The Man With The Golden Tongue’. And that is what he’s — he’s an knowledgeable at what he does.’

Checkley’s experience lies in what is called romance fraud, or ‘rom-con’ because the crime has been nicknamed. Targeting middle-class girls, he mercilessly exploited their vulnerabilities to inveigle his means into their affections, earlier than persuading them handy over more and more massive sums of cash. His method was honed over a long time, beginning within the mid-Eighties when he obtained £27,000 from one sufferer after marrying her and remortgaging her home.

Then, in 2010, he was jailed for greater than six years for defrauding ten girls out of a whole lot of hundreds of kilos, one among whom was divorcee Sharon.

Not that he realized any classes.

Because by 2017 he was again as much as his previous tips, spinning an online of lies that noticed dozens extra conned out of over £100,000. The cash was used to fund his life-style and indulge his love of Harley-Davidson motorbikes and international holidays.

In the tip, as we will see, in July 2021 his previous as soon as once more caught up with him and he was arrested by police.

Eventually charged with offences towards ten girls, following an eight-week trial he was convicted of 19 counts of fraud and one among theft, and was final week sentenced to an additional 11 years in jail on the Old Bailey.

True to kind, the 65-year-old confirmed no regret, dismissing his victims as ‘pals with advantages’.

Detectives who investigated the case say Checkley is the ‘most prolific and heartless’ felony of his type they’ve ever come throughout. There had been stronger phrases from these whom he deceived. As he was led to the cells, 4 of his victims had been in court docket, cheering and shouting: ‘Scum’.

Having just lately undergone surgical procedure for most cancers, Lise was not capable of attend court docket, however it’s a sentiment she shares, blaming her former ‘boyfriend’ for her sickness and the monetary woes that noticed her shedding her dwelling and ending up residing in a automobile after which a hostel for the homeless earlier than being lastly re-housed by the native council, on advantages. ‘I’m glad he’s in jail as a result of it’s the solely place he cannot do that to some other lady,’ she advised the Mail.

‘I not belief anybody and I do consider that the stress ranges have precipitated me to have most cancers. This has ruined my life on each stage.’

In current years, the variety of girls searching for love, who’re deceived into false relationships by fraudsters whose solely intention is to steal their cash, has soared.

According to information from Lloyds Bank, romance scams elevated by nearly a 3rd final 12 months, with these aged 50 to 65 accounting for greater than half of the cash stolen. The actual figures are most likely a lot increased, with victims of the crime typically too embarrassed at having fallen for these conmen to go to the police.

And, certainly, given the outlandish claims made by Checkley, some will surprise how he obtained away with it for therefore lengthy.

During his newest trial, the court docket heard that he advised among the girls he seduced that his former spouse was a cousin of the Hollywood actress Lucy Liu whereas boasting of his kids’s profitable careers as hospital consultants and DJs. They had been lies which might be repeated in numerous varieties to his different victims.

Other tales included him being a U.S. fighter pilot, and a veteran of the Vietnam War, regardless of him having come to the UK aged ten from the Caribbean island of Grenada and being simply 17 years previous when the battle ended.

Checkley additionally claimed to personal a profitable architect’s observe, explaining his frequent absences by saying he was travelling the world for work, designing palaces for ‘kings and princes’ within the Middle East.

In actuality, he was the director of an inactive firm known as Greater Income Group Ltd, the initials of which adorned the personal quantity plates of his numerous motorbikes and Mercedes automobiles. Companies House information present the agency was set as much as spend money on property, with Checkley having the nerve to explain his occupation as ‘monetary engineering’.

As for dwelling, that was a rented £500,000 semi in St Albans, Herts. Quite how lengthy he was truly there’s unclear given the period of time he spent between the assorted girls in his life, all of whom believed they had been in monogamous relationships with him.

Checkley’s victims had been chosen from the Plenty of Fish courting web site and aged from their 40s to their early 70s.

‘It is evident from the proof that the defendant selected his victims understanding their vulnerabilities,’ prosecutor Rekha Kodikara advised the court docket.

‘Some of the victims had sad relationships, some had been lonely, some had been ailing and so they had been searching for a long-term relationship.’

And Checkley knew the correct strings to drag.

Described by one lady as ‘charismatic, assured, elegant, clever and rich’, he would come throughout as somebody reliable and reliable, a loving father and grandfather. (Twice married, he has at the very least 5 kids of his personal.)

He took one 68-year-old lady, recovering from most cancers and mourning her mom, to view a home in North London, the place he mentioned they may stay together with her kids and grandchildren.

‘He was a charmer,’ one other of the victims, a divorced businesswoman in her early 60s, mentioned.

‘He was attentive and advised a extremely, actually good story and supported every thing with pictures of his household and of his grandchildren.’ Having gained their belief, Checkley wasn’t gradual to ask to borrow cash from the ladies, providing to take a position it on their behalf, to purchase a Rolex watch at a knock-down worth or to refurbish properties which they’d sooner or later share.

‘He mentioned he wanted the cash for brand spanking new home windows, and that he could not pay money for his funds as a result of the man in his finance division was away in Germany,’ mentioned the girl, who gave him a complete of £3,000 through the seven weeks they knew each other in 2021. ‘I ought to have recognized higher handy over cash however I did.’

Others misplaced a lot greater sums —one 61-year-old felt assured sufficient to open seven bank card accounts and hand him £30,000. Another gave him £45,000.

As for Danish-born Lise, she lent him £15,700 over a three-year interval. ‘He was very upfront when asking for cash,’ she mentioned. ‘I’m not a rich lady however there was a lot — it might be something from £10 to hundreds.’

At one other level one among her rings went lacking, stolen by Checkley.

‘It was my mum’s ring, she died in 1989 and needed me to put on it after her dying,’ she mentioned. ‘I took off my three rings and left them on my desk and when David left, my mum’s heavy white gold solitaire ring, with seven brilliant-cut diamonds had gone.’

Checkley denied understanding what had occurred to it and the connection continued, regardless of her suspicions rising in direction of the tip.

‘There was a time when he requested me to search for a storage to retailer one thing for him in,’ she recalled. ‘I mentioned why do not you simply lease an area in Big Yellow or one of many storage locations and he requested me to get costs. I did and when he got here spherical to see me and we had been speaking about it, it turned out he did not perceive the best way to work out what was a cubic metre.

‘I assumed, if he could not work out the best way to calculate a cubic metre, how might he be an architect? Can you think about the homes he can be constructing if he did not know the way to try this?’ And but, like lots of the girls, she solely realized the complete reality of his deception with a name from the police in the summertime of 2021. By then, Checkley had been rumbled by a number of different victims, who had alerted the authorities.

The businesswoman was amongst them. She labored out his actual id after paying £15 for a web-based test to see who was actually behind an electronic mail deal with he used within the title of David Cohen.

‘When I came upon it was somebody known as David Checkley, I Googled him and there it was, all in entrance of me,’ she mentioned.

‘I learn the articles and noticed the pictures and came upon about his earlier victims.’

Among them had been stories concerning the court docket case involving Sharon and others from 2010, whom she tracked down on Facebook after which met in individual for a chat.

It was early 2021 and she or he believes she was the primary one to report Checkley to police. Others weren’t far behind. ‘There was about six of them who obtained in contact and I simply mentioned to all of them: ‘You have to go to the police,’ mentioned Sharon. ‘The proven fact that he got here out of jail and did it over again beggars perception, however leopards by no means change their spots. They mentioned they could not consider he was like this, and I advised them to learn the tales that had been on the market.’

Those tales advised how Sharon had misplaced £200,000 to Checkley. Other girls who featured within the 2010 case included Shaffeena Ahamed, a 54-year-old healthcare employee from North London, who handed over £16,000 to Checkley lower than two months after assembly him and Susan Baio, who used to personal a nursery in Bath, however misplaced her enterprise on account of his trickery.

His new victims additionally realized about one other case Checkley had been concerned with, which offered one other terrifying perception into his true character.

In 2002 he was jailed for 5 years for his position in a ruthless, London gangland plot to abduct and homicide the previous Channel 4 presenter Mark Levy.

The comic, as soon as a well-recognized face on the channel’s Big Breakfast present within the Nineteen Nineties, was a cocaine addict and had develop into concerned in numerous scams to earn money. Checkley had lured him right into a deal to purchase pretend Rolex watches on the gangland workshop from the place he was subsequently kidnapped and murdered.

Checkley was convicted of false imprisonment and conspiracy to trigger grievous bodily hurt.

At his sentencing listening to final week, Judge Jonathan Laidlaw instantly addressed Checkley’s latest victims.

‘I’m fairly sure no sentence goes to do justice, however I hope it’ll develop into clear that these are felony offences, they aren’t your fault on any of those convictions,’ he advised them.

Kind phrases however ones that can do little to erase the trauma of what they’ve all endured.

On high of the monetary hit, is the emotional trauma. ‘It’s been a nightmare,’ mentioned Lise.

‘The three years I used to be with David Checkley, it was good after we had been collectively, there have been by no means any arguments. The drawback was that he would typically disappear for every week or two or three after I could not get in contact with him, so it was anxious all through the connection.

‘People have requested how I felt afterwards and perhaps that was my melancholy kicking in, but it surely was like David had died and I used to be grieving for what might have been however I knew I might by no means get.’

She says it has additionally broken her potential to belief anybody, a sentiment shared by the businesswoman, who has now tentatively returned to on-line courting — albeit very cautiously.

‘Obviously I’m very suspicious of everybody,’ she says.

‘So when any man asks me what I do for a residing, I inform them that I’m a policewoman. And what occurs? As quickly as I say that, they block me.

‘There should be hundreds of scammers on the market.’

Thankfully with Checkley now again behind bars, at the very least there’s one much less to take care of.