Pension scammer sentenced to 40 months in prison

Roger Bessent took the money from the Focusplay Retirement Benefit Scheme, converted the transfers into loans and made official minutes and records of the pension scheme falsely listing other trustees as present at meetings.

He was convicted of five counts of fraud, two counts of making employer-related investments and one count of acting as a director while disqualified.

It is the first time a prosecution by The Pensions Regulator has led to an immediate custodial sentence.

Nicola Parish, TPR’s executive director of frontline regulation, said: “Bessent used the pension scheme as his personal piggy bank, transferring out hundreds of thousands of pounds for his own personal benefit and to keep his other businesses going.

“As an accountant, Bessent was someone that people would turn to for advice and put their trust in. He abused that trust and used his position as trustee to defraud the scheme for his benefit and the benefit of his friends and family.

“Trustees play a vital role in protecting the benefits of members. We will not tolerate the abuse of such an important job.”

Nathan Long, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, commented: "The rise of sinister pension scams that aim to trick people into parting with their hard earned retirement savings is a serious stain on society and needs eradicating. The chunky helping of prison time handed out today will go a long way to showing quite how intent regulators are on taking down the perpetrators."