A controlling boyfriend who forced his bank manager partner to steal almost £1million, which he blew on exotic holidays and fast cars was jailed for three years today.
Crack addict Keith 'Junior' Preddie, 30, banked more than £145,000 of the stolen cash and spent more on powerful motorbikes, BMWs, a failed business and trips abroad.
Ania Wadsworth, 28, said Preddie threatened, beat and intimidated her in to stealing so he could pay off his spiraling drug debts and fund an 'extremely extravagant lifestyle'.
I guess going to the police was too empowering for her or something.
She repeatedly walked out of a branch of Lloyds TSB with bundles of £25,000 in her handbag and manipulated internal accounts to fool auditors.
Wadsworth admitted stealing the cash, but said she was a victim of 'battered woman syndrome' and Preddie had threatened to kill her if she did not hand over her wages and steal cash when he demanded.
Is there a battered man syndrome?
Wadsworth who had been a manager for five years, was unanimously cleared of theft after a three week-trial at the Old Bailey in January.
But Preddie, who bragged he was a high-flying record producer, was found guilty of money laundering.
He rocked back on his heels and needed support from dock officers as the sentence was announced. He was then led to the cells in tears.
Jailing him, Judge Richard Hone QC said: 'There can be no doubt that it was you who put Ania Wadsworth under pressure sufficiently and persistently to steal nearly £1million from Lloyds bank over a period of approximately five years.
Five years of this! She didn’t seek help so she couldn’t have been that bothered. This article continues with the most gynocentric shit I’ve seen in a long time.
Wadsworth said she was beaten and dominated by Preddie, adding: 'He basically said there were people that were going to kill him so he had to pay them and if I didn't get money for him then he would kill me.'
But jobless Preddie, who admitted having a £500-a-day crack cocaine habit, said he had spent only what he had been given as 'gifts'.
Any evidence for these beatings and threats? Otherwise it’s just hear-say, unless of course, a woman’s word is worth more than a man in the court. Note the next few clippings.
Wadsworth denied ever enjoying the trappings of wealth and said she rarely spoiled herself.
Bullshit.
For his 21st birthday in 2000, Wadsworth flew both of them to New York.
The couple then went on a string of holidays to Greece, the Canary Islands, Amsterdam and New York, all funded by her. She also had trips to Rome, Venice and Cyprus.
The couple also put a new kitchen and bathroom in their flat in Crouch Hill, north London, and he poured thousands in to a fledgling record company which never got off the ground.
No trappings of wealth there. There is a possible motive for her actions though…
He also holidayed in Jamaica with friends and the Dominican Republic with a woman called Jade, who he started seeing behind Wadsworth's back.
Preddie then squirreled away thousands so that he could start a new life with his lover, who he wined and dined with Wadsworth's money.
Ouch. Date a bad-boy, get treated like shit, go along for the ride, claim a complete and utter lack of personal responsibility when it suits her and dump everything on the man. Funny, I thought feminism was about men and women being ‘completely equal’. I guess only when it’s expedient for them, then they can use the poor innocent female card.
Now that’s what I call equality.