A STUDENT fleeced out of her £20,000 life savings by love rat Adam Lloyd-Harris today branded him the “scum of the earth”.
Lloyd-Harris not only stole Janine Munroe’s heart, he emptied her bank account and ruined her life.
The Walter Mitty-style conman charmed his way into the trainee nurse’s home, claimed he was a music executive working for Sony and flashed the cash on expensive holidays and presents.
“He even paid for a hypnotist – with my money – to hypnotise me when I started asking questions about the relationship,” said Janine, of Ryhope.
Now, after admitting defrauding Janine out of her savings, Lloyd-Harris is on the run, having twice conned police into letting him go, claiming he is seriously ill with kidney failure.
Janine, 35, said: “He’s good at what he does. He tells you what you want to hear. He’s charming, clever, but, underneath it all, he’s the scum of the earth.”
Janine first met Lloyd-Harris, 32, in February 2009 when they were introduced at a house-warming party.
Soon he was regularly staying over at her terraced home.
“He told me he was a music executive working for Sony. I would drive him to Durham Station every morning where he would get on a train to Leeds or London.
“I thought he was going to all these high-powered music meetings, but later discovered he was just sitting all day in local libraries,” said Janine. Always seeming to have plenty of cash in his wallet, Lloyd-Harris led a “flash” lifestyle, always buying the best of everything.
Janine added: “He’d buy premium petrol rather than just the normal stuff. He’d always arrive home with wine and flowers, and we had holidays in Portugal and Berlin.”
What Janine didn’t know, however, was that she was paying for all of this.
“He was using my credit cards, emptying my ISA account. He took all the savings I’d built up to see me through university.
“To cover his tracks, he’d come downstairs in the mornings and take all my post so I would never get any bank statements.”
Cleaning her car one day, Janine came across a letter from her bank which made her suspicious.
She searched further and discovered statements stuffed down the sides of seats. It was then she realised her boyfriend was a fraud – and a thief.
“When I confronted him about it, he broke down and said he was going to jump in front of a train,” added Janine.
“He was in such a bad way, I called in an expert from Crisis to evaluate him, but they told me he had no mental health problems.
“I knew then I had to call in the police. He left my place with his laptop and the clothes on his back.”
As revealed in yesterday’s Echo, Lloyd -Harris admitted theft and fraud at Newcastle Crown Court in December 2011. But he has since been on the run.
Police in Nottingham caught up with him twice, but he slipped through the net after telling officers he was undergoing emergency treatment for kidney failure.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he did that,” added Janine. “He’ll be conning some other poor person as we speak.
“I’m not someone who is easily led, and I’m not stupid. I just want other people to know what type of person he is.”
Twitter: @craigjourno.
