A FRAUDSTER convicted of duping investors out of over £4 million by promising impossible returns on property deals in Cyprus has been jailed for eight and a half years.

Sascha Morris, an Australian international senior tennis player, was a financial advisor based in North Yorkshire when she urged private clients to invest whatever money they could into “off plan properties” saying they would be able to sell or rent them before the full building costs fell due.

Later when it was clear that was disastrous advice she persuaded two business consortiums to back some of the developments by lying to each of them they were the only ones each investing £1.1m.

Sentencing her at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Rodney Jameson QC said Morris’s behaviour was reprehensible. He said she was meant to protect the interest of her clients but had cost them money instead.

The advice she gave was to “raise every penny you can and invest it in off plan property in Cyprus” when many did not want to own property abroad but she promised they would make money by “flipping” the property before full payment was due.

She had not revealed she was “not simply an independent financial advisor but an agent in plain terms, a saleswoman for the property you advised them to buy”, the two he suggested being incompatible roles.

The judge said she might have believed initially that it was a “sensible investment” because she and her pilot husband also put money into the scheme which they lost but there came a time by June 2005 she knew that was not true.

She showed a “cavalier disregard” for the interests of her clients and selfishly then concentrated on trying to make money for herself and that was when she persuaded the two consortiums to put £1.1m into the schemes each unaware the other was involved.

Morris, 46, more recently from Eastbourne was convicted by a jury last month on one charge of fraudulent trading and two of fraud involving the information she gave to her investors. In addition o the jail term she was disqualified from being a company director for eight years.

The judge said he was satisfied from when she began acting dishonestly in 2005 14 individual clients had lost £1.9m through her actions and subsequently that of the consortiums..

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Among the losers who trusted her was a pilot introduced through her husband who described becoming emotionally “overwhelmed” facing 11 years of “mental, physical and financial ruin.”

He estimated his family losses in excess of £300,000 through massive increases in mortgage and payments to get rid of the property in Cyprus.

Another man who sought advice about how to invest a redundancy package said his meeting in 2005 with Morris “resulted in a life-changing nightmare.”

“And is this nightmare over yet, No. The nightmare continues as I wait for a knock on the door over a Cyprus property I cannot afford to pay the mortgage for,” he said.

One woman from Easingwold lost over £250,000. She had used both inherited money and money from re-mortgaging houses to invest in the deal and has not only lost her money in the UK but like other investors is being chased for payment by developers in Cyprus.

The jury heard during the trial there were two separate cases against Morris, the first involved the individual investors who went to Morris for financial advice between 2004 to 2007 at her business Morris and Hale Ltd then operating in Killinghall, Harrogate.

The second the consortiums she later involved who also lost out.

The private clients were encouraged through her acting as a property broker to invest in off plan properties in Cyprus by either buying to let or as she termed “flipping” the properties by selling them on before completion when they had to be fully paid for.

Nadim Bashir prosecuting said she gave investors the impression well known holiday companies would buy or rent the properties but that proved not to be the case and investors either lost their deposit or found themselves having to pay for the full property and take out mortgages in Cyprus when they could not afford to do so.

Those renting also did not get the returns she had predicted and individual investors had lost over £3m as a result as a result of investing in the developments at Elysium Gates in Peyia; Ampelos View in Paphos or Rooftops in Larnaca, some lost before she began acting dishonestly.

Morris denied any misrepresentation or withholding facts from the investors but her account was rejected following the investigation by officers of North Yorkshire Police’s major fraud team who were commended by the judge.

Adam Morgan representing Morris said her firm had not been fraudulent from the outset but the investments were hit by the global financial crash.

She excelled as a tennis player and had reached into the top 20 world ranking as a senior but was now not considered fit to represent her country, Australia.

“She has lost her good character, she has lost her career and the respectability she achieved through sport.”