A "MANIPULATIVE" accountant who carried out a £330,000 fraud on a man with learning difficulties has been jailed for five and a half years.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said Sukhdev Singh had reduced the victim to "living in squalor" in the house his father had left him but which the 73-year-old fraudster had stolen from him.

The accountant had promised the parent he would look after the child, now in his fifties, who has a mental age of 12 and a half, and was unable to look after his financial affairs.

Instead Singh had deliberately targeted him and set about stripping him off his assets.

While the victim lived in a damp pigeon-infested house that needed work doing on its kitchen and bathroom, Singh had been spending the victim's money at William Hill's, York Crown Court heard.

Singh would have continued to steal the victim's assets but for "extremely shrewd" Harrogate Borough Council employee Emma Woods, who had realised something was wrong and called in police.

The judge called Singh a "plausible fraudster" who had duped innocent people into signing and witnessing the false documents he had used to carry out his frauds.

Faced with overwhelming evidence against him, he had "lied and lied and lied, no matter how ridiculous the lie.

"You should hang your head in shame," he told the fraudster.

Defence barrister Rodney Ferm said Singh would now be stripped off his professional qualification of which he was very proud and would have great difficulty rebuilding his life after prison.

Singh, of Chelwood Drive, Moortown, Leeds denied four charges of fraud by abuse of trust, but was convicted by a jury last month.

He was jailed for five and a half years and banned from contacting the victim under a lifelong restraining order.

The jury heard how apart from gambling, Singh had spent more than £30,000 of the victim's money in weeks on jewellery, private school fees, accounts he held in India and other matters.

After the sentence, retired Detective Constable Ian Sharp said; "Sukhdev Singh had been an associate of the victim’s deceased parents, and had full knowledge of his learning difficulties.

"He is a manipulative fraudster who displayed a callous lack of empathy for his vulnerable victim.

"He exploited these vulnerabilities for his own advantage in order to systematically asset-strip him.

“Singh has behaved in an arrogant, deceitful way throughout and appears to have no remorse whatsoever for his crimes.

“It was a truly sickening and callous series of frauds committed against someone who should have been able to trust an accountant to act in his best financial interests."

The judge commended Ms Wood, Mr Sharp, Detective Constable Matthew White and police financial investigator Lyn Brown for their parts in bringing Singh to justice.

He said that although Singh had returned the house, worth at least £230,000, to the victim, he had only done so after he realised police were investigating him.

Mr Ferm said Singh had a "lifetime of good behaviour" behind him, including years of doing the accounts for his local Sikh temple without pay.