Midlands conman Bill Williams' trail of misery

EXCLUSIVE by Crime Correspondent Shaun Jepson - The £500,000 trail of devastation left behind by serial fraudster and former West Midlands football club chairman Bill Williams can today be laid bare for the first time.

Victims throughout the region today revealed that they have been financially ruined by the callous crimes carried out by the 59-year-old, who duped scores of people into handing over their life savings to him.

Williams went on to spend their cash on family holidays to the United States, season tickets at Aston Villa and lavish family parties, as well as splashing out on a personalised number plate, B12 TAX, for his car.

Today, the Express & Star lifts the lid on his criminal history that spans more than three decades, including how Williams:

• Conned a priest out of £100,000 on a promise that it would be invested in a Jersey bank

• Duped Wednesbury couple Russell and Joanne Orme into handing over £20,000 for a fabricated house-buying scam

• Spent £60,000 of money he stole on employing semi-professional players for Harrisons FC of Great Wyrley.

Victims today said they fear they will not get any money back and want answers as to how Williams was able to operate as an accountant despite being made officially bankrupt on three separate occasions.

The fraudster is behind bars serving five-and-a-half years for stealing the £276,000 pension and life insurance policies of Wolverhampton murder victim Andrew Diack.

For three decades, Bill Williams has been conning innocent members of the public out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But despite being jailed for fraud on numerous occasions, he has continued with a crime spree that has hit people from across the West Midlands.

In one case, he even took £100,000 from a priest after convincing her the money was going to be invested.

An Express & Star investigation has discovered that Williams was first jailed for fraud in 1986.

Then a former manager of Banks's League football team Harrisons FC of Great Wyrley, Williams was sent down for three years after a court heard he stole more than £100,000 from companies who employed him as an accountant.

He spent £60,000 of the stolen money on employing semi-professional players for the club and paying their wages after a sponsorship deal he had arranged fell through.

He admitted four charges of theft totalling £21,772 from Brierley Lifting Tackle Ltd of Old Hill, and Central Industrial Supplies of Tipton. He also admitted three charges of submitting false VAT returns and asked for 89 other offences involving a sum totalling £79,680 to be considered. Williams stole the money by falsifying company VAT accounts and using money paid to him for settlement of those and Inland Revenue bills for his own purposes.

Ten years later in 1996, Williams was up to his old tricks again, stealing £140,000 from his clients, including a woman priest. He was jailed for three years.

During a court hearing in that year, it was revealed that Williams took the money to clear his debts from a collapsed partnership.

Then, his Williams and Co firm was based in Claregate, Wolverhampton. He admitted stealing cash totalling £40,000 belonging to Anthony Green in 1994 and also pleaded guilty to stealing £100,000 from Doreen Saxon, an anglican priest, between December 31, 1994 and March 1, 1995.

Reverend Saxon handed over a £60,000 cheque that Williams invested in a Jersey bank. Another £40,000 was later handed over to him. Only a small amount was repaid to her.

Williams is currently partway through a five-and-a-half year prison term for swiping the £276,000 pension and life insurance policies of Wolverhampton murder victim Andrew Diack, who was stabbed to death in 2009. But he is facing the potential of even more time behind bars when he is sentenced for his current raft of offences on May 2.