The financial adviser who conned £2m out of his friends and neighbours

Timothy Barnes was not targeting strangers when he set about swindling people out of nearly £2m - these were his friends and neighbours. Those who knew him best, or so they thought.

Barnes was after all a financial adviser, living among them in the close-knit Warwickshire village - someone they all trusted.

Known as Paul, he was a familiar and respected face. But behind that reputation, he started borrowing money under false pretences from those very people, even including a criminal lawyer.

And he accrued the huge amounts in just six months, by conning a total of 36 people.

For Carolyne Ryan-Bell it was truly personal. She has known Barnes for about 25 years - their families have spent Christmases together, gone on skiing holidays and regularly met for evening meals. Their families' friendship was part of everyday life.

So when Barnes asked to borrow £40,000 from her, claiming he urgently needed to pay an inheritance tax bill following his mother's death and promising the money would be repaid within days, she believed him.

The 57-year-old professional horse trainer, who lived doors away from Barnes in Abbots Morton, said that at that point, in December 2022, she "had no reason not to trust him".

"We spent Christmases with him and his family, Boxing Days, pretty much every birthday they had, even skiing holidays," Ryan-Bell said.

"Over 20 years of a very good, fun, close relationship, which built huge amounts of trust, as you do in a friendship.

"When somebody you've known for that long asks to borrow money, you don't question it. I had absolutely no reason not to believe him."

Barnes assured Ryan-Bell the money would only be needed for a matter of days and would be repaid immediately.

But it was not long before the friendship unravelled, as excuse followed excuse for why he was failing to give her the £40,000 back.

Ryan-Bell's growing horror was compounded when she eventually realised she was just one of dozens of Barnes' victims.

"He said he needed to pay off his death duties of his mother after she'd died earlier that year," she said.

"I was going through a very serious high-stress divorce at the time, and it was a very difficult time for me.

"It turns out he asked everybody, absolutely everybody he knew. Every single person, my next-door neighbours, and he even asked a criminal lawyer."

Ryan-Bell eventually got £25,000 of her money back from Barnes after he started paying in instalment. But the remaining £15,000 is still missing.

She said that before that though, he approached her 84-year-old father asking for £30,000 in order to pay her.

"I have no hope at all of getting the money back," she said. "Where did all that money go?

"I feel really upset by it. It's not about forgiveness, but it's very difficult to move forward when something like that has happened to you."

The case would eventually reveal Barnes had exploited trust on a scale the people around him would struggle to believe.

The 68-year-old, who later moved to Charland Court, Droitwich, admitted 39 counts of fraud, including against the Pershore-based British Motorcycle Charitable Trust where he was chairman, and the residents' association of the estate where he lived.

He took almost £2m from his victims between November 2022 and May 2023.

Warwickshire Police would later reveal that Barnes had been investing the money he had stolen into a crypto-currency wallet.

Among those also caught up in the fraud were Michele, 65, and Liam McFall, 73, from Stratford-upon-Avon.

They had first received Barnes' advice more than a decade earlier while planning for retirement.

The couple had spent years building a professional relationship with him after running a guest house in the town, before it gradually became something much more personal.

"He used to come and visit regularly," Michele said. "It went beyond just being our financial adviser to becoming a personal friendship."

She explained that every piece of advice Barnes had given them over the years had proved sound, strengthening their confidence in him.

But then, in 2022, he phoned asking for help. The couple anxiously contemplated the request before agreeing to lend Barnes £10,000, after he promised it would be repaid within a week.

Michele said Barnes sent them a signed agreement - that later turned out to be forged - confirming the money would be repaid by a certain date.

However, the promised repayment date soon passed, wile Barnes continued reassuring them the money was coming.

Meanwhile, the McFalls desperately needed the cash back to complete the purchase of a house.

"I can't describe the worry and the stress," she said. "We had nowhere else to get that money from.

"With hindsight I feel stupid because there were so many red flags I didn't recognise.

"We just want to know the answers. Why did he do this?"

Barnes was jailed for 11 years on 19 June, after admitting 34 counts of fraud by false representation, three offences of making or supplying articles for use in fraud and two counts of fraud by abuse of position.

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