Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Loan shark who charged 2,437 per cent

Obviously, Mr. Kiely didn't hear about the Bank of England's zero interest rate policy. From the Telegraph....

John Kiely, a loan shark, was branded a "ruthless individual" by a judge in Manchester as he was jailed. Kiely, 36, was sentenced to five years at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court for offences including blackmail and illegal money lending.

Judge Adrian Smith told multi-millionaire Kiely: "It's clear to me you are a ruthless individual who has displayed a high degree of criminal sophistication." Kiely charged up to 2,437 per cent interest on loans and used an army of enforcers to collect debts owed by poor families on Manchester housing estates, the jury that convicted him last month heard.

One of his victims, Donna Ockerby, 45, claimed she was left fearing for her life and was forced to move to a secret location to escape him. Kiely was convicted of two counts of blackmail for his actions towards her.

Mrs Ockerby, an auxiliary nurse, borrowed £300 from "Johnny Boy Kiely" to pay for her wedding dress in January 2007 because she was "absolutely desperate", the jury heard. He dispensed the money from a roll of £20 notes from his black Range Rover, complete with the personalised number plate "B0Y".

Mrs Ockerby said she faced aggressive demands for money when she struggled to repay her debt because her working hours were cut. On one occasion Kiely turned up unannounced at her semi-detached house and grabbed hold of her. Another time he turned up and banged on her door early in the morning, the court heard. Mrs Ockerby told the jury she feared for her life when a concrete block was thrown at her window just hours after a debt collector called.

14 comments:

  1. Seema - Gordon Brown should also be in prison... he is a traitor to everything Great Britain ONCE stood for.
    He has no morals, he is a liar, he has bankrupted the UK for a generation and he is the un-elected leader of a political party that has about as much common sense, decency, scruples as a dog turd !

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  2. Serves them right. Get him out of jail.

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  3. No mention of the husband in all of this.

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  4. He can always get a sales job with Hbos/Lloyds/Northern Rock when he comes out of jail.

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  5. From the BBC :
    lent one family £500 to meet a debt taken out for computer - then forced them to pay £88,000 over seven years.

    lets do the maths

    88k/7y thats about £250 a week for a loan of £500.

    Sorry i dont belive this stupidity..

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  6. Kind of like those idiots who send money to a Prince in Nigeria, or who buy stuff they are spammed about, or who buy shares off a man they never heard of following a coldcall phone conversation.

    It never ceases to amaze me how utterly stupid people can be. Don't people know about credit unions? What about the concept of saving up? Or getting a job?

    And yet 20% of people would still vote Labour?

    What a world!

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  7. Oh dear, face facts would you. If you borrow money from a loan shark, you deserve what you get. If you borrow more than you can afford to quickly pay back. you definately deserve what you get.

    You also fail to mention the sum in question was £300, for which he demanded £20 per week until the lump sum was paid. Hardly a secret that this is how loan sharks operate. And if you can't beg borrow or steal £300 to pay a man like this what you owe him, well, you are a complete moron who deaserves what they get.

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  8. Don't people know about credit unions?



    Credit unions like this one? http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Leeds-bank-calls-in-police.5470638.jp

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  9. @yat yee sam
    Wow, nice to know there is still some compassion left in this world.

    Not everyone has your god like levels of intellectual brilliance, so as a society what should we do? leave those without your clarity of thought to rot in the gutters?

    Go and do some volunteer work in a poor community, talk to them, listen to their stories, you never know you might learn something and have an epiphany.

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  10. Odd story this. Whilst the essence of the story is correct (loan shark) the rest of the story (and in other papers too) looks to have been subjected to some very heavy spin.

    And as anon 05:56 points outs, there is some creative accounting going on too.

    Why let facts get in the way of a good story....

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  11. Fred, i suppose you are a socialist that believe's the poor need saving. They don't. I don't care about them. They don't care about me. Compassion is for saps like you that have lead sheltered lives, which is why you have enough love left to spread around. My heart turned cold a long time ago, and i see the wrold as it is. Compassion and charity do more harm than good. There is a reason runts are pushed out the pack in nature, it's so they learn to look after themselves. Her little experience may have learnt her a thing or two. And good for her. It's only a shame she suffered enough compassion in her life up to that point that she never learned to mess with people like the man in the story. Well, she knows now. And she could have ended the whole ordeal by just not spending her giro quite so fast, and finding the £300 she had promised to pay back.

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  12. "she could have ended the whole ordeal by just not spending her giro quite so fast, and finding the £300 she had promised to pay back"

    Loan sharks don't really work like that. They start off all nice, then turn seriously nasty, they begin inventing charges, threatening serious violence against family members etc. They are looking for vulnerability to exploit basically. The story does not say that she had to pay £20 a week back, it says he dispensed the original £300 loan from a roll of £20 notes.

    I'm no socialist, but I work in law enforcement and if you think people like this should just have a free reign to do whatever they like to whoever they like then quite frankly you are in a tiny minority who believes that.

    It's all well and good you seeing the world 'how it is' but in case you hadn't noticed, most law enforcement work actually protects people with assets. Without regulation and the threat of sanctions, someone bigger and uglier than you would probably just come along and take everything you own by force.

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  13. @Yat Yee Sam
    Dude, you need a hug.

    My friends would be in fits of laughter if someone called me a socialist. You dont have to be a socialist (or religious) to be compassionate.

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  14. For yat yee sam;

    You must be one of the bankers, very close to be inhuman. I bet you can only show empathy with your computer screen.

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