A financial manager who swindled more than £2m from Friends Provident has been sentenced to three years in jail.
Paul Wood, from Bradford on Avon, was sentenced at Swindon Crown Court today after admitting eight charges of fraud at an earlier hearing. The 48-year-old father of two was a private customer of Friends Provident and owned an investment bond policy with the company. Between 2005 and 2009, by using a "loophole" in Friends Provident's control systems, he simply altered the time on faxes he was sending to experts instructing them to buy shares on his behalf. By back-dating the faxes an hour or two, Wood knew how the stock had performed and cashed in on huge sums of money. The prose...
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