Former Co-operative Bank chairman Paul Flowers has been ordered to pay back the £184,000 he stole from an elderly friend – or face an extended stay in prison.
The 75-year-old, who was a Labour councillor in Rochdale and Bradford, abused his position as Margaret Jarvis’ will executor and plundered her estate on wine, luxury holidays and lavish gifts for himself.
Flowers, formerly of Swinton in Salford, was handed a three-year jail sentence at Manchester Crown Court in February after he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of fraud by abuse of position.
Earlier this year, the court heard the fraud totalled more than £180,000, but Flowers had submitted a basis of plea, accepted by prosecutors, in which he admitted stealing just under £100,000.
But on 24 September, after a confiscation order was granted to recover the full amount of money lost during a Proceeds of Crime Act (PCOA) hearing at Manchester Crown Court, the ex-church minister was told by a judge he would have two-and-a-half years added to his prison sentence if he fails to pay £184,862 within the next three months.
The money reclaimed by Jarvis’ estate will go to her family and the charities she had identified before she died in 2016. She is believed to have pledged money to organisations supporting abandoned donkeys, South African orphans, guide dogs for the blind and research into Alzheimer’s disease.
Flowers had known his victim for several decades and had become friends with her, and was appointed as the sole executor of Miss Jarvis’ will in the 2000s.
However, instead of safeguarding the money, he spent the cash on expensive trips, significant home improvements and booze. The majority of the offences were committed in 2016 and 2017, when he wrote a cheque amounting to over £40,000.
He withdrew around £70,000 and continued to spend the money profligately until it had nearly all been spent.
Officers from the GMP’s Economic Crime Unit conducted the investigation and have assisted with getting the POCA granted.
Detective Constable Kate Riley, a fraud investigations officer at GMP, said: “Getting Flowers’ ill-gotten money back and into the right hands is a further layer of justice that I am pleased has happened.
“He is still serving his time in prison for his crimes – exploiting a vulnerable woman for his own self-serving needs. This order means the money he took can go back to where his victim intended.”
Charles Clayton, a specialist prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service’s Proceeds of Crime Division, added: “Paul Flowers abused the trust his friend placed in him, preying on her vulnerability.
“He stole a large amount of money from her, depriving charities and her niece of gifts that were bequeathed to them. We are pleased to have secured a compensation order that will right that wrong.
“Today his victim’s final wishes for her estate will finally be fulfilled.”
Miss Jarvis, a former teacher who had no partner or children, was a long-time friend of Flowers.
She developed progressive dementia and was moved into a care home near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, where she died aged 82 in 2016.
During the later stages of her life, after it was deemed she could no longer look after her own financial affairs, Flowers was trusted with control of her accounts, acting with the power of attorney and as the executor of her will.
Flowers, who defrauded Jarvis at the end of her life and after death, spent her money buy fine wines, expensive cruise holidays, stays at the Park Hotel in London’s Knightsbridge, tickets for the West End show Jersey Boys, and new carpets for his Swinton residence.
However, his careless spending was flagged as potentially suspicious by Jarvis’ bank after they were alerted that they had been paying the victim’s pension for two years after her death. The police were contacted in 2019.
At the sentencing in February, Linda Meichtry, one of Miss Jarvis’s nieces, said in a victim impact statement: “I’m shocked he’s committed such a crime against a vulnerable and elderly friend.”
Bob Elias, defending, said Flowers had led a life of “significant achievement” but had suffered a “remarkable fall from grace”.
He said Flowers, a grammar school boy after passing his 11 plus, had “found his vocation” after studying theology at Bristol University and became ordained as a Methodist minister in 1978, later rising to the top in the banking industry, becoming boss of the Co-op Bank in 2010, but had struggled with his sexuality.
Mr Elias continued: “As he became a public figure he found it nigh on impossible to ‘come out’. The persona one has as a clergyman or high official in a bank makes it difficult. That stress or tension was there for much of his life.”
He said the pressure led to his increased use of cocaine, until the newspaper sting revealed his drug use. Mr Elias added: “He will bear with him till the day he dies the sobriquet, Crystal Methodist.”
“It is a betrayal of friendship and trust by him,” Mr Elias continued, “To abuse, squander money on class A drugs to some extent and holidays and staircases. He’s thrown it all away, breathtaking in one sense, tragic in another, despite his character flaws, he got as high as he did.”
At the initial sentencing where flowers was jailed for three years, Detective Constable Riley, said: “Flowers completely abused his position as a will executor and as a friend, fraudulently taking tens of thousands of pounds that he simply was not entitled to.
“The money should have been going to good causes but instead went to satisfying Flowers indulgent lifestyle of holidays, cruises, and expensive food and wine.”
She added: “He and his victim had worked together on charitable projects, so he was fully aware of the importance of charitable gifts in her will.”
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