The disgraced former boss of Co-op Bank Paul Flowers has been ordered to pay back £184,000 he stole from an elderly spinster – or face more prison time.
The 75-year-old ex-Methodist minister was jailed for three years for conning his close friend Margaret Jarvis, and plundering her estate, to pay for wine, luxury holidays abroad and trips to the theatre.
Flowers, who was nicknamed the ‘Crystal Methodist’ after the Mail on Sunday exposed his illegal drug use while at the helm of the bank 11 years ago, had power of attorney over Miss Jarvis and, following her death, was also executor of her will.
But instead of her cash going to South African orphans, abandoned donkeys, guide dogs for the blind and research into Alzheimer’s, Flowers spent it on himself.
He pleaded guilty to 18 counts of fraud at Manchester Crown Court last July.
The court heard the fraud totalled more than £180,000, but Flowers had submitted a basis of plea, accepted by prosecutors, in which he admitted stealing just under £100,000.
At a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) hearing held at the same court today Flowers was ordered to repay £184,862 within three months.
A judge told him that failure to comply with the confiscation order will result in another two and a half years being added to his prison sentence.
Detective Constable Kate Riley, a fraud investigations officer at GMP, said: ‘Getting Flowers’ ill-gotten money back and into the right hands is a further layer of justice that I am pleased has happened.
Greater Manchester Police’s mugshot of Paul Flowers
Margaret Jarvis, a devout Methodist who believed in helping others less fortunate. After she appointed Paul Flowers as the executor of her will, her trust was betrayed by the former Co-op bank chief and church minister, who blew £100,000 on himself
‘He is still serving his time in prison for his crimes – exploiting a vulnerable woman for his own self-serving needs. This order means the money he took can go back to where his victim intended.’
Charles Clayton, a specialist prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service’s Proceeds of Crime Division, added: ‘Paul Flowers abused the trust his friend placed in him, preying on her vulnerability.
‘He stole a large amount of money from her, depriving charities and her niece of gifts that were bequeathed to them. We are pleased to have secured a compensation order that will right that wrong.
‘Today his victim’s final wishes for her estate will finally be fulfilled.’
Retired teacher Miss Jarvis trusted Flowers, who was a long-standing friend, to manage her money when she developed progressive dementia.
But he abused that trust and continued taking her money when she moved into a care home, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and after her death, aged 82, in October 2016.
Miss Jarvis’ bank initially contacted police after a single transaction on her account was flagged as potentially suspicious.
Officers started to investigate and discovered Flowers had been siphoning off cash for years.
He spent £1,500 of Mrs Jarvis’ money on wine from The Wine Society and also used £1,300 to pay for cruises with P&O, plus another £1,800 on holidays, including trips on the Eurostar and to a four-star hotel in Corfu.
Flowers was previously filmed counting money for drugs by undercover reporters
He also spent £1,275 on new carpets for his Salford home and used her cash for stays at the Park Hotel in Knightsbridge and also tickets for the West End show Jersey Boys.
Miss Jarvis, who never married, had few close relatives but wished to leave money to her two nieces and a number of charities, including the Donkey Sanctuary and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
One close relative previously told The Mail on Sunday: ‘She trusted him to do this one thing for her.
‘On the one side you could say that it is a victimless crime because Margaret has passed away, because she does not know that he has let her down.
‘But it isn’t victimless, because those charities would have been supporting people – what about those people?’
Flowers, who was also a Labour councillor in both Rochdale and Bradford, became the chairman of Co-op Bank in April 2010 until he was forced to resign from his £132,000-a-year post in June 2013.
Six months later – days after a disastrous appearance before the Treasury select committee and MPs branding him ‘financially illiterate’ – he was filmed by reporters from the Mail on Sunday apparently counting out £300 for a drugs deal.
In May 2014, Flowers was fined £525 after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine, crystal meth and ketamine at Leeds magistrates’ court.
The court heard that the ‘stress’ of his Co-op job and ‘caring for his terminally ill mother’ were reasons for his drug use.
He was later caught on video snorting cocaine and entertaining rent boys at his home.
Flowers, who was sacked as a Methodist minister in December 2016, discussed his seedy lifestyle in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight, admitting: ‘I have sinned.’
Later, it emerged that he had also resigned from Bradford Council in 2011 when ‘inappropriate but not illegal’ pornography was discovered on his laptop.
