A VICTIM of a one-legged fraudster says she has lost her faith in Christianity after being fleeced out of her life savings.
Valerie Greenslade and her husband David, 71, gave £35,000 to Stephen Ross to invest as they had known him for 10 years and he told them he was a broker at Rothschilds Banking Group.
But instead he spent their money on his luxurious lifestyle which included his house in gated development Drake Mews in Bromley.
And after reporting Ross to police Mrs Greenslade found out everything the 51-year-old had told her had been a lie including him saying he had lost his leg in the London bombings in July 2005.
Mrs Greenslade, of East Hall Road, Orpington, said: “The experience has changed me totally and now I don’t trust anybody.
“I was the sort of person who would do anything for anybody and people look at me to say I have changed because all the time I feel I have been used.
“I have lost my faith and I think ‘Why me? Why did he pick on us?’”
The 67-year-old added: “It was supposed to be a 16-week investment and it just did not happen and he kept putting it off and putting it off and then he said he had been sacked from Rothschilds.”
She added: “We would always see him early in the morning as he said he had to work in the City at night because his client was the Sultan of Brunei.
“He was living a luxury lifestyle on everybody else’s money and he caused our business to go under.
“He has wrecked people’s lives and bled them dry.”
The grandmother, who ran her bakery business in Bromley High Street, hopes Bromley police will be able to get her savings back by a confiscation order and urges other victims of Ross to come forward.
Ross pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and was jailed for five years at Croydon Crown Court.
A further three counts of fraud were ordered to remain on file by the court.
None of the people or institutions named by Ross have any knowledge of him.
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