Conman whose £82k fraud on his ex-girfriend was exposed when he used her disabled parking badge jailed

Crime reporter(wp/es):

A love-rat conman whose £82,000 fraud on his ex-girlfriend was exposed when he was caught dodging a parking offence has been jailed for four-and-a-half years. 

Alan Bohrer, 64, began helping himself to Susan Franks’s fortune while they were dating in 2012, offering to manage her finances and then secretly writing out cheques to himself. 

A part-time film extra and gambling addict, Bohrer forged Mrs Franks’s signature on 42 cheques over four years, continuing the fraud after breaking up with her in 2014 when he started seeing a younger woman. 

Mrs Franks, 59, a property entrepreneur, model and actress, eventually discovered the fraud in 2016 when Bohrer asked her to lie to the police after he had been caught using her disabled blue badge for parking. 

She lost faith in his honesty and took back control of her finances, then found Bohrer had sliced cheques out of her chequebook with a knife and paid himself £82,500. 

Bohrer denied the fraud but was convicted by a jury at Harrow crown court. 

Speaking after the case, Mrs Franks said: “I am very, very sad it has come to this.

He is an ex-boyfriend and we had some really, really good times together. 

“My sadness has turned to anger. I didn’t think he would steal off me. He still had the keys to my house even when we finished.”

She said she had paid for them to go on cruises together, but Bohrer would spend most of his time in the ship’s casino instead of with her. 

“I paid because I did not want to go on my own but he would be in the casino morning, noon and night. He loved the casino and I would have to go to the shows on my own.”

She said her “heart sank” when she discovered his fraud and added: “It is unbelievable that someone I trusted has done that to me.”

She said she tended Bohrer after he had been ill, but he started going to private card clubs up to five days a week and then began dating another woman. 

The court heard Bohrer and Mrs Franks had first dated when they were young but he married her best friend instead. They got together again in 1999 as his divorce was about to be finalised. 

Bohrer offered to manage her finances, which included a large inheritance from her father and an extensive property portfolio. 

“She placed complete trust in him. He knew all her finances and assets and had the key to her house and the alarm code,” prosecutor Nicholas Alexander told the court. 

He said the arrangement ended in June 2016 when Bohrer “asked her to lie to the police that she had been with him when he used her blue badge without her permission”. 

Bohrer, of Colindale, denied fraud but was convicted of two counts of fraud and one of forgery and was jailed on Friday.