Easy Money - did you see it?
Apologies to the "rest of the world", but this program was aired on BBC2 last night(16/1). It concerned a con artist Chris Ineson, who has run scam after scam for the past 10 years. For reasons I must have missed, he allowed a camera crew to shadow him in the weeks running up to his trial on fraud charges last summer.
I became quite incensed as the progam developed, watching him boast of charging people hundreds of pounds to become agents for non-existent businesses, and making fun of those people who tried to contact him by phone, by recording all the calls, and never answering their calls personally. He laughed as he told how he pays no income tax, national insurance, TV licence, council tax etc. In fact we watched him bluff his way out of a visit by a council bailiff by claiming to be his own brother.
As the trial date approached, his nerves started wearing thin. He abused his wife as a gold-digger who hates his scams but loves his money. And he tried to sack the defence barrister who warns he will be convicted. Even his solicitor appeared to lose hope in the end!
Fortunately, the story had a happy ending IMHO. After just two hours, the jury returned a guilty verdict and Ineson was jailed for five and a half years.
This was the first of four similar programs. Next week it is about the seedy world of the porn industry.
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