A rogue trader who was allowed out of prison to raise money for food banks spent the cash on tickets to see pop singer Rihanna instead, a court heard.
Fake foreign exchange trader Alex Hope, who was jailed three years ago for masterminding a £5.5 million Ponzi scheme to fund his lifestyle and gambling habits.
On Friday he was sentenced to a further 16 months in prison for using funds on concert tickets and prosecco instead of repaying authorities.
While in Ford prison in West Sussex, Hope was granted release days so he could work to make money that he said would be donated to food banks, according to a prosecution statement.
He was required to pay £166,696 as part of a confiscation order. Instead, between April and September 2016, Hope spent £75,000 pounds while on release, buying 42 bottles of prosecco from a supermarket, tickets to see the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a boxing match, and four tickets to watch pop star Rihanna in concert, the prosecution statement said.
The singer also featured in Hope’s original case, after he bought a bottle of champagne for her table.
Hope pleaded guilty earlier this month to perverting the course of justice for trying to hide funds from regulators and investors he cheated instead of handing the money back as required by earlier rulings.
“Hope repeatedly misled the courts and the FCA, concealing monies that should have been used to compensate the victims of his crimes,” Mark Steward, the Financial Conduct Authority’s executive director of enforcement & market oversight, said in a statement.
“He has shown contempt not only to the court, but also those he has harmed.”
Before his arrest in early 2012 at the age of 23, Hope lied about being a city trader and his experience in spread betting and foreign exchange trading, while taking funds from more than 100 investors.
Operating from London’s financial district in Canary Wharf, he splurged about £2 million of their money in just over a year, including £950,000 at casinos and £512,000 at clubs and bars, the FCA said at his 2014 trial.
He was found guilty of one count of fraud and jailed in January 2015. He later had nearly 20 months added to his seven-year sentence in 2016.
