Croydon man steals £4.5k from girlfriend after losing job (From Croydon Guardian)

Croydon man steals £4.5k from girlfriend after losing job

8:02am Wednesday 28th July 2010

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A fraudulent lover stole £4,500 from his girlfriend after losing his job.

Matthew Millard, of Darley Close, Croydon, used his girlfriend’s credit and debit cards to splash out on lavish presents for her and his family.

Lisa Eason found out about the deception on the day the 30-year-old was due to move into her home in March this year.

Millard was eventually arrested on March 27 and charged with two counts of fraud between November 18, 2009 and March 3, 2010.

He pleaded guilty and was due to be sentenced at Croydon Crown Court on July 16. However, the judge was forced to issue a bench warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for the hearing.

Millard will be sentenced at a later date.

The pair had been together for a year, and Miss Eason had suggested he move in with her because he had just lost his job as a salesman in November and was struggling.

The 29-year-old discovered the fraud when she saw £80 had been withdrawn from her bank account on an evening when she had been at home, ill in bed.

Realising her boyfriend was the only one who had access to her card, she called and confronted him. He tried to brush it off.

She said: “I went through all of my bank accounts the next day and that is when I realised the extent to which he had been robbing me, it was horrible. Over three months he had fleeced £1,200 from my current account.”

The Shirley resident soon discovered the deception did not end there, Millard had intercepted her credit card and spent more than £3,000 on it.

“He had been paying the minimum amount to the bank every month so they did not call me.

“He paid for his whole family’s Christmas presents. He bought himself an Xbox and a pair of new shoes with my money. I paid for my own Christmas present, a bracelet from Swarovski.

“He was making a lot of cash withdrawals to pay off previous debts.”

At first, shocked by the deception, the 29-year-old did not go to the police and Millard promised to pay her back.

But when she received threats from him, Miss Eason struggled to get the police to treat her case as fraud.

She said: “It took them a long time to stop treating me as a woman scorned. They wanted to treat it as a domestic case because of his threats.”

She said it was very difficult for her to go to the police and hopes her case helps other women who have been through similar problems.

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