The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has banned Paul Grant, a former independent financial advisor, from financial services after he was convicted of fraud.

Grant's conviction came on 18th October at Croydon Magistrates Court after he pled guilty to 11 counts of fraud by abuse of position, as per section 4 Fraud Act 2006, and three counts of theft. On 11 January this year, he sentenced at Croydon Crown Court to five years and six months' imprisonment. He committed his offences in his capacity as a financial advisor.

The judge said that instead of putting funds from his customers into investments, he paid them into his personal bank accounts, spending approximately £2.1 million over the prolonged period of his offending. Grant paid small amounts back, deceiving his victims into thinking that these sums were profits on their non-existent investments.

In sentencing, the judge said: "You abused the trust of many who though they were friends of yours...over a significant number of years, with a large number of victims, you have deliberately  targeted them, some of whom are vulnerable, and it strikes me...that some of those were deliberately targeted because of their vulnerability."