Kerry Katona brands her former accountant a 'manipulating liar' as he is jailed for conning 1,200 people after posing as a barrister and personal insolvency practitioner
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A serial fraudster who previously worked as Kerry Katona's accountant has been jailed for six years after he posed as a barrister and personal insolvency practitioner and defrauded an estimated 1,200 people.
David Williams, 68, of Eadestown, Rathmore, Co. Kildare, and previously of Sroughan, Blessington, Co. Wicklow, pleaded guilty to multiple sample counts of deception between January 2019 and 2020 but failed to turn up at his sentencing last month.
He also admitted to charges of providing legal services while an unqualified person and acting as a personal insolvency practitioner while an unauthorised person during the same period.
Co-accused Crystal Talia, 46, of Sroughan, Blessington, pleaded guilty to impeding an investigation by allowing Williams to use her bank accounts.
Talia, originally from Uganda, was previously given a one-year suspended sentence.
In a separate bill, Williams pleaded guilty to defrauding a Galway woman in her 80s by dishonestly inducing her to buy a mini digger for over €7,000 (£5,788)
The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau began to investigate a firm called THL Legal, which offered legal services including advice about work permits and leave-to-remain applications.
Most of the people seeking advice were not of Irish origin and had paid sums averaging €1,500 (£1,240) to the company.
THL had Facebook and Twitter accounts and a website advertising themselves as 'a dynamic firm of experienced lawyers', although the company was never a solicitors' firm and was not registered with the Law Society.
THL's offices in Greenogue Business Park, Westmanstown, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin, were raided by gardaí who seized a client list with 1,200 names on it.
Williams then set up another legal firm called Moore, Barrington and Walters (MBW) which operated from November 2019 to May 2020, until its offices were also raided.
Williams was arrested in May 2020, but by June of that year, counsel said he was 'toting himself out' as a personal insolvency practitioner in a third business called Global Business Recovery, or GBR.
The court heard that Talia and Williams were in a relationship and living together in Kildare with a number of children at the time of the offences.
She opened a bank account used for trading at THL and then MBW, into which unwitting victims transferred fees for what they believed would be legitimate legal services.
Ms Sullivan gave an overview of 15 people defrauded by Williams, including people from South Africa, Libya, the Philippines, and Poland. One victim from South Africa transferred €1,600 (£1,323) to THL Legal in order to get his daughter naturalised.
He was contacted months later by THL to say it couldn't be done, but he didn't get his money back.
A Libyan man who was working full-time paid over €1,500 (£1,240) to Williams for help processing his visa application, but it never happened.
Judge Orla Crowe called him an 'endemic recidivist fraudster'. She said there was a huge breach of trust on foreign nationals trying to regularise their status.
Williams has multiple previous convictions, dating back to the 1970s, including making false statements, obtaining property by deception and theft.
Meanwhile, former Atomic Kitten Kerry Katona said the serial fraudster was the reason she went into bankruptcy.
She described him last night as a 'manipulating liar' and 'conman, adding: 'I feel for all of his victims'.
Williams began managing Katona's finances 16 years ago. Katona was initially declared bankrupt at the High Court in London on August 21, 2008, after failing to pay £82,000 of a £417,000 tax bill.
She filed for bankruptcy a second time in 2013 at the County Court in Wigan.
She said on the On a Mission podcast, in September 2023: 'My first bankruptcy, I was devastated.
It was my accountant who stole my money. He went to jail for it, but I never got my money back.
People thought: 'Oh she's sniffed it up her nose,' but that wasn't the case. I could afford all the coke and cars, but this accountant was taking my money and sending fake letters saying: 'That's been paid.' None of it had been.'
Katona told the Mail last night: 'He's lower than low! He's the reason I went into my first bankruptcy, which didn't only affect me but had a knock-on effect on my children, but also the lives of others who I was in business with who then also lost everything because of my bankruptcy, because of David.
'He will never stop being a fraudster he's the ultimate conman and deserves everything he has coming to him! I'm still trying to build myself up from everything I lost because of this man!'
