Woman, 62, conned out of £150,000

A BOGUS financial adviser who conned a grandmother out of her £150,000 retirement pot to fund his gambling addiction has been jailed for more than two years and four months.

Ryan Burnside, 35, pretended to mental health officer Margaret Gallivan that he was investing her life savings overseas, when in fact he was spending it at casinos.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard Burnside created a Walter Mitty fantasy life to entice Mrs Gallivan, 62, to trust him with her wealth – lying about having large plots of land and fancy cars.

And he did not tell her that he he had been dismissed from his firm for “financial irregularities”.

Mrs Gallivan will now have to work on past her planned retirement date.

Sheriff William Gilchrist said yesterday Burnside had committed a “gross breach of trust”.

Mrs Gallivan had received a six-figure divorce settlement, and Burnside was her adviser before he was sacked.

Burnside, of Nettlehill Road, Uphall Station, West Lothian, admitted that at Mrs Gallivan’s home in Bridge of Allan, he pretended he was an independent financial adviser.

Mrs Gallivan said last month that Burnside had used her as a “cash machine”.