Blind man scammed out of £185,000 by fraudster who ‘bullied’ him for four years

A blind man was forced to hand over £185,000 of inheritance from his late mother to a fraudster who persistently bullied him for four years.

Mark Best, a visually impaired piano tuner, was subjected to a shocking ordeal at the hands of cruel sales director Mark Stanner.

Stanner, 42, led a heartless operation in which he duped Mr Best, 55, into believing he owed money for promoting his business services online. 

His grim tactics included intimidating Mr Best with texts, phone calls and emails demanding money, as well as aggressive threats from people claiming to be debt collectors or the police.

He also warned Mr Best that bailiffs would be visiting his property ‘within the hour’ to seize possessions and change the locks if he didn’t pay up.

Mr Best, who was said to have been ‘played like a violin’, borrowed thousands of pounds from friends and was even forced to evict his own uncle from the house his mum had left him in order to sell it and raise cash to pay back the bogus “debts”.

Years of torment began when Mr Best used his braille software to read a number of fake invoices sent to him by Stanner, some of which said he had less than half an hour to pay.

Stanner used a call centre company in Manchester as a front for his fraud and underwent a series of aliases to repeatedly follow up on the illegitimate invoices with aggressive phone calls and texts.

By the time police were finally called in to investigate the case, Mr Best had borrowed a whopping £30,000 from friends and was left virtually penniless.

When he was tracked down, Stanner – who calls himself ‘The Window Wizard’ – claimed to have squandered the money on gambling and drugs.

But pictures on Facebook showed him enjoying several holidays in Turkey and the Middle East with his unwitting fiancee Gail Spink and her children during the course of the fraud between January 2017 and July 2021.

It emerged Stanner targeted Mr Best after getting hold of the victim’s phone number and email from his business website and social media pages. 

He also recruited friends and family to use their bank accounts to split the cash between, including his sister Martina Turner, 44, who allowed £31,000 of Mr Best’s money to go through her account.

Mr Best, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, who lives with his wife Chris who is also blind, said they were both badly affected ‘financially and emotionally’ by Stanner’s ‘intimidating and aggressive bullying tactics’.

‘My trusting nature has now been taken full advantage of by those who see fit to con vulnerable people purely out of greed for their own self-centred financial gain,’ he said. 

‘My piano tuning business has been operating for over 30 years and being blind from birth I have to trust those with whom I have contact and I base my work on trust, honesty and integrity.

‘Clearly those involved in this scam do not operate under the same high level of morality – that is if they have any morals at all. 

‘They surely must regard causing financial and emotional stress in this way as some kind of joke.’

Mr Best said he was ‘easily traced’ by Stanner because he needed to publicly advertise his contact details for his business.

The initial contact was from a mobile number claiming he owed money for alleged outstanding advertising costs, Mr Best said, and that it needed to be paid almost immediately.

He would then be bombarded with calls on ‘any day of the week, including weekends and late evenings’.

Relentless threats eventually took a ‘huge toll’ on Mr Best and his wife and left them living in fear about ‘what could happen to us and our home’.

‘We were sent into numerous panic attacks because we were both made to feel unsafe in our own home,’ he said. 

‘One bogus demand was for £4,000 to be paid within the hour whilst on several occasions bullying tactics were used displaying rudeness, aggression and impatience if requests for money were not paid in as little as half an hour.’

Mr Best said it is ‘always in my nature’ to pay money as quickly as possible if he owes it and that he was unable to investigate the false demands being made due to his disability.

He also said the onslaught of abuse brought on asthma attacks, made him suffer with extremely high blood pressure, endure sleepless nights and even struggle to eat.

He added: ‘Much of the money was from my late mother’s estate given to me as a bequest including her home. 

‘I kept telling these heartless people my funds were at breaking point but they showed no compassion and continued to demand payment.

‘I feel humiliated and totally worthless and I feel as though I have very seriously let down my late mother. 

‘I was close to my mother and not only did I lose her but I also lost my inheritance which was my old family home – all to people who have no purpose in life but target and extort money from vulnerable people for pure greed.’

Naomi Duckworth, prosecuting, told Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester: ‘Mr Best was more vulnerable than most to being exploited. The cruelty he fell victim to once he was trapped in it, pushed him into being squeezed and milked for endless sums of money.

‘This was a heartless fraud carried out on a decent man causing him immense worry. To use a musical analogy, Mr Best was played like a violin.’

The bank has since reimbursed £131,000 to Mr Best. 

Stanner, from Droylsden, who had previous convictions for stealing for an employer and deception, claimed he had been coerced into the fraud and suffered from mental health issues.

He was jailed for five years and four months after he admitted conspiracy to defraud.

His counsel Rick Holland said: ‘Though this fraud was executed on a prolonged basis and on a substantial scale, the root of Mr Stanner’s offending has been problems with gambling. There is another dimension to his character.’

But when sentencing Stanner, Judge Jason MacAdam told him: ‘This was a predatory, systematic and organised fraud upon a naive, gullible and vulnerable man. You stole his money without mercy until nothing more could be got.

‘You were the principal player and you mercilessly and relentlessly drove this fraud of all that could be extracted from the victim. You were involved from first to the last in every aspect whether it be recruiting others, drafting documents, sending messages or making threatening phone calls to the victim.

‘You continue to accept no responsibility for your wicked offending and you simply do not care about the harm you have caused. You remain a thoroughly dishonest, manipulative and devious offender.’

Stanner’s sister Martina Turner, 44, was handed an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and was ordered to complete 200 hours unpaid work.

Stanner’s former business partner Marvin Scott, 41, from Blackley, Manchester, was jailed for 31 months for fielding £48,000 of stolen cash. All three will face a Proceeds of Crime hearing later.

In all, five people were arrested and charged over the scam. Charges against two suspects were dropped at an earlier hearing.

Last week, a mum was jailed for fraud after secretly scamming her friends and family out of £500,000 to fuel her ‘money addiction’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.