- By Steve Mellen & Clara Bullock
- BBC News
Image source, Wiltshire Police
The judge said Sajad Hussain had “pulled whatever emotional lever you could to extract money from your victims”
A man who manipulated three women into giving him a total of more than £200,000 has been sentenced to five years and four months in jail.
The offences spanned from 2013 to 2020, after he had met the women on dating sites. They all believed they were in exclusive relationships with him.
One victim said she had “lost all feelings of confidence and self-worth”.
‘Web of lies’
Sentencing Hussain at Swindon Crown Court, Judge Jason Taylor KC said: “You spun a web of lies, you pulled whatever emotional lever you could to extract money from your victims, using them as human piggy banks.
“You were cold-hearted, tossing them aside when they were no longer of use to you.”
Over the course of seven years, Hussain defrauded the three women from the West Midlands of more than £204,000.
The court heard that in 2018, he got married but at the same time he met three different victims online.
Victim ‘felt violated’
Between them, the women had taken out loans, given him their parents’ life savings and sold their gold and jewellery to give him the cash.
One woman read a victim personal statement to the court herself, telling the judge: “The man who you see before you today lied to defraud me of thousands and thousands of pounds and priceless family heirlooms which I will never get back.
“He continued to manipulate me to serve his own gambling addiction.”
She described how she felt “violated” by Hussain and said the impact of his crimes upon her and her family had been “astronomical”.
Image source, Wiltshire Police
Hussain’s victims believed they were in exclusive relationships with him
A second woman, in a victim personal statement read by prosecution barrister Steven Molloy, said she felt “stupid, ashamed and guilty” for falling for Hussain’s lies.
She was forced to take out a high-interest loan to repay her family the money she had borrowed, with the financial impact of Hussain’s offending meaning she was unable to take full maternity leave when she had a baby years later.
A third woman told how she lives with “a constant feeling of dread” and was unable to have children at the age she wanted to due to believing she had a future with Hussain at the critical time
‘I did love him’ – victim
One of Hussain’s victims told the BBC she had helped him financially as her feelings for him were real.
“Imagine sitting next to someone who, at that time, you thought you love, knowing that they are in pain and there is something you have to do to help them out,” she said.
“That’s exactly what I did.
“I lent him money to help him out and it was always because he’s going to be returning the money back to me within a matter of weeks, and we are going to be together.
“I did love him. I did,” she added.
Hussain fed the women a string of lies, including that he was a police officer, his mother had breast cancer, he needed rent money and that he needed funds to pay for his father’s care – even though his father had already passed away.
He told them all that he loved them and promised marriage and children.
When police arrested Hussain in October 2020 they found betting slips and a small Nokia phone in the boot of his car, with two of the victims’ numbers on it.
The court was told Hussain had a substantial gambling habit and from 2013 to 2020 lost £135,000.
Hussain pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud on 17 April.
