AN ACCOUNTANT who carried out an international fraud of more than £300,000 against a North Yorkshire man with learning disabilities is today behind bars.

The victim told a York jury he believed that Sukhdev Singh, 74, was helping him sort out his financial affairs.

Angus MacDonald, prosecuting, said in reality, the accountant was "callously manipulating" him.

The barrister told Singh: "Over the years you have cynically stripped him of everything he owned."

"I have not done that to anyone, I have not done it to him," Singh replied.

The jury convicted him of four counts of fraud by abuse of position.

The victim, who gave evidence, had been brain damaged from birth, has Asperger's Syndrome and his mental abilities are in the bottom 6 per cent of the population, the jury heard. His parents had died and he had been left with properties in two countries and two bank accounts outside the UK.

By the time police were involved, Singh had taken ownership without paying a penny of the victim's mortgage-free Harrogate home worth £230,000 to £275,000 and was charging him rent to live there, the jury heard.

Singh claimed in evidence that it was the victim's responsibility to meet the £27,000 bill of improvements ordered by Harrogate Borough Council under a formal improvement notice.

The jury heard the accountant had also transferred all £34,000 in the North Yorkshire man's Gibraltar account into his own account and within three weeks, spent it on gambling, Premium bonds and gifts to members of his family.

He claimed in evidence it was his money because it was in his account but he had to account for it to the victim.

The jury heard Singh had tried to take the victim's Spanish flat but a Spanish notary had refused to do the necessary documents.

He had also been stopped from draining the victim's £5,000 Jersey account because the bank had had concerns.

Following the verdicts at the end of an eight-day trial, his barrister Rodney Fern applied for bail so Singh could prepare his family for the "inevitable custodial sentence".

But the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, refused and remanded Singh in custody until May 11.

"After hearing him give evidence ..... I simply don't trust him," he said.

Singh, of Chelwood Drive, Leeds, had denied all four charges.

Giving evidence, he claimed he had regarded the victim as "one of the family" and only done what he had been asked to do.

"He (the victim) is very bossy man, he is very clever," he said.

He denied he had acted as the victim's accountant.

But the jury saw letters with Singh's company's letterhead describing the victim as its client.

And he claimed in evidence that the victim owed him more than £24,000 in accountant's fees.