A FRAUDSTER has been jailed after he abused his friendship with a Chester couple to steal more than £360,000.

Damien Tideswell appeared at Chester Crown Court on Friday, July 26 where he was sentenced to six years and six months in prison.

The 42-year-old, of Hale Drive, Liverpool, had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud. He was also convicted of breach of court bail after failing to attend his original sentencing date in an attempt to evade justice.

During the hearing the court heard how in July 2021 Cheshire Police launched Operation Gains after officers received an allegation that a couple from Chester had been defrauded out of £360,200.

Tideswell was a trusted friend and had told the victims that he had £3.5million in his account, but that they had been frozen by HMRC due to an outstanding balance.

He asked the couple if he could loan money in order to repay the fine and assured them that he would repay all the money, as soon as his accounts were unfrozen.

Tideswell provided the victims with forged documentation, fabricated imagery, and he even went to the extent of orchestrating fraudulent phone calls to deceive them.

However, he never repaid any of the money and was continuing to ask for more cash so the couple reported the matter to police.

Tideswell was subsequently arrested following a warrant at his home in December 2021, and later charged with two counts of fraud.

During the investigation officers analysed Tideswell’s bank accounts and discovered that the majority of the money he had received had been spent on gambling, with £181,890 paid out to online betting companies.

He also spent more than £22,000 on car hire, £19,000 on hotels in the UK, along with almost £10,000 on bars and restaurants, nearly £4,000 on holidays abroad and £4,000 on designer clothing.

Following Tideswell’s sentencing, Detective Constable Gareth Yates, of the Economic Crime Unit at Cheshire Police, said:

“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 oversees 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.”