The former officer has been sentenced to six years in jail for involvement in a horse racing betting syndicate scam.

UK.- A former British policeman has been sentenced to prison for six years for his involvement in a horse racing betting syndicate scam. Michael Stanley, from Kent, was found guilty on several charges of fraud.

Appearing at Maidstone Crown Court, the former police officer admitted to running a racing syndicate named Layzey, which was found to have defrauded thousands of people out of at least £44.2m. The syndicate used a Ponzi-style tactic disguised as a lay betting horse racing scheme from 2013 to February 2019.

Layzey members would invest funds, purportedly for collective gambling, but Stanley would use the new investments to pay earlier members. He lied about the amount of successful bets, inflated the value of investments, and transferred money to his own accounts. The scheme had up to 6,000 members at one point, including friends and family of Stanley himself.

The scheme abruptly collapsed in February 2019 with an estimated net loss of at least £10.5m. Stanley was declared bankrupt in 2019. The 67-year-old, who served in the police in the 1980s, was found to have used at least £4m for his own uses, buying 23 racehorses, a villa and apartment in Spain, cars, private number plates and jewellery. 

He has been disqualified from acting as a company director for 15 years, and a Serious Crime Prevention Order has been imposed for five years from the date he leaves prison.

Rachael Barber of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Stanley operated a massive fraud which he marketed to unsuspecting members as ‘virtually risk free’, whilst boasting of the huge profits from the syndicate. In reality, Stanley’s gambling losses far exceeded any winnings, and the scheme was doomed to collapse at some point.

“When this inevitably happened in 2019, devastated members were left out of pocket and money they believed they had legitimately invested for weddings, retirement funds, medical treatment and other purposes was all gone.

“Stanley totally betrayed the trust placed in him by investors to manage their money wisely, and we are pleased to have secured justice for these victims.”

Anne Lambert named interim chair of British Horserace Betting Levy Board

Meanwhile, the UK government has named Anne Lambert as interim chair of the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB), the public body that collects annual levy payments from licensed betting operators to fund the British horse racing sector. The appointment comes after the unexpected death of former HBLB chairman Paul Darling in August. 

Lambert has been an independent member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board since April 1 2020. She has also been a non-executive director of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) since October 2016.