'I was taken for a right mug'

FORMER unlicensed fighter Roy “Pretty Boy” Shaw told a High Court judge that he had been taken for “a right mug” by a “conwoman” 30 years his junior.

Lawyers for Shaw, 72, accuse former friend Linda Finnimore, 43, of Newton Abbot, of “misappropriating” a chunk of the former armed robber’s fortune between August 2006 and November 2007.

Barrister Jeremy Callman, for Mr Shaw, told judge Sir John Lindsay that Ms Finnimore used “false representations”, “undue influence” and “deceit” to get the cash.

Giving evidence at London’s High Court yesterday, Mr Shaw said that on October 30, 2007, he went to an HSBC branch of the HSBC bank, in Loughton, Essex, with Ms Finnimore in the belief he was paying a tax bill estimated at around £700,000.

Instead, he unintentionally ended up transferring £643,000 into Ms Finnimore’s account.

Describing himself as “Mr Trusty”, he said he had been “fooled” into transferring the money by a “natural fraudster”. He added that, a few days earlier, Ms Finnimore had made a series of £100,000 transfers from his current account into other accounts held in his name, and he had become “confused”.

Defence barrister Simon Lillington suggested Mr Shaw had simply wanted to reward his friend for her help. Mr Shaw replied: “I just wanted to give her £643,000? I said ‘There you are darling, go out and buy yourself a new dress’?”

“She was messing with my brain,” said Mr Shaw, who told the judge that Ms Finnimore “did all the talking”.

“She was saying ‘put money here and there’. She fooled me into it. She is a typical conwoman and that’s what she done.”

Barrister Simon Lillington, for Ms Finnimore, suggested to Mr Shaw that he wanted to reward his then friend for the help she had given him, and the transfer was “nothing to do with tax”.

Mr Shaw replied: “I just wanted to give her £643,000? I said ‘There you are darling, go out and buy yourself a new dress’?”

“Don’t be silly. She learned me a lesson. I don’t loan no money to anybody any more. She took me for a right mug.”

Mr Lillington also put it to Mr Shaw that he had entered into a 50-50 agreement with ghostwriter Katie Kray over royalties from his best-selling book, and had reached a similar deal with Ms Finnimore for helping him in his property dealings.

But, while Mr Shaw agreed that he had given Ms Kray 50 per cent of royalties because she had “made me a lot of money”, no such deal existed in relation to Ms Finnimore when his land was eventually sold.

Ms Finnimore denies any wrongdoing, and says she was entitled to every penny she was given by Mr Shaw, which includes not only the £643,000 but a series of other transactions as well.

Ms Finnimore also says she was effectively Mr Shaw’s “common law wife” after meeting him in the 1990s while visiting Reggie Kray in Maidstone prison.

The case continues.