A conman has been put behind bars after he confessed to swindling a couple out of more than £360,000. Damien Tideswell was handed a six-year and six-month prison sentence at Chester Crown Court on Friday (July 26), after previously admitting to two counts of fraud . The court heard that the 42 year old, from Hale Drive, Liverpool, blew most of the cash on gambling, with thousands also splashed out on foreign holidays and designer gear.
Tideswell was further found guilty of breaching court bail by failing to show up for his original sentencing date in a bid to dodge justice. The court was told that Cheshire Police kicked off Operation Gains in July 2021 following allegations that a Chester couple had been conned out of £360,200. Tideswell, a trusted friend of the victims, had claimed he had £3.
5million in his account, but it had been frozen by HMRC due to an outstanding balance. He asked the couple for a loan to settle the fine, promising to pay back all the money as soon as his accounts were unfrozen. To trick them, Tideswell provided the victims with fake documents, doctored images, and even staged fraudulent phone calls, reports the Manchester Evening News .
However, Tideswell failed to repay any of the borrowed money and continued to request more funds, leading the couple to contact the police. Following a December 2021 raid at his residence, Tideswell was arrested and later charged with two counts of fraud. Police financial investigations revealed that Tideswell had blown most of the cash on gambling, with records showing £181,890 funnelled to online betting firms.
He also splashed out more than £22,000 on car rentals, £19,000 on UK hotel stays, nearly £10,000 in bars and eateries, almost £4,000 on overseas holidays, and £4,000 on designer gear. After Tideswell's court appearance, Detective Constable Gareth Yates from Cheshire Police's Economic Crime Unit commented: "The victims trusted Tideswell, he was a close family friend, and when he came to them asking to borrow money, they wanted to do all they could to help him. Over the coming months, Tideswell fed the couple a web of lies, stating that he had millions of pounds in overseas accounts, but was unable to access the cash due to an outstanding tax balance.
"In total, he received 42 separate payments from his victims between August 2017, and February 2019, on each occasion reassuring them that he would return all of the money. In reality, Tideswell had squandered all of their cash on online betting and funding his lavish lifestyle. "As a result of his actions, the victims have now been left financially destitute, unable to enjoy the comfortable retirement that they had worked hard for all their lives.
While we have not been able to recover any of the money they have lost, I do hope that the fact that Tideswell has finally been held accountable for his actions will provide them with some closure.".
