Financial manager gets three years for £2m Friends Prov fraud

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...