Robert Hendy-Freegard

Robert Hendy-Freegard (born Robert Freegard, 1 March 1971) is a British convicted conman and impostor who masqueraded as an MI5 agent, from his early 20s through his 30s, while working as a barman and car salesman.

He is also known as David Hendy and David Clifton.

Hendy-Freegard was born in Dronfield and started his career as a barman and car salesman.

Hendy-Freegard met his victims on social occasions or as customers in the pub or car dealership where he worked.

Having met the victims, he claimed to be an undercover agent, working for MI5, the Special Branch or for Scotland Yard.

He applied pressure and psychological stress to his victims, claiming they were threatened with assassination by the IRA, to coerce them into following his demands.

Having won his victims over, he coerced money out of them and pressured them to do his bidding, by asking them to: cut off contact with their family and friends; perform "loyalty tests"; and live alone in poor conditions.

He seduced five women, claiming that he wanted to marry them.

Initially some of the victims refused to cooperate with the police because he had warned them that police would be double agents or MI5 agents performing another "loyalty test".

In 1992, while working in The Swan, a pub in Newport, Shropshire – and still with the unhyphenated name Freegard – he befriended two women, Sarah Smith and Maria Hendy, and a man, John Atkinson.

All three were agriculture students at Harper Adams University in Edgmond.

He told Atkinson that he was an MI5 undercover agent who was investigating an IRA cell in the college.

He forced Atkinson to let himself be beaten up to prove his loyalty and to show that he was "hard enough".

He also persuaded him to behave in a bizarre manner in college to prove his loyalty and to alienate him from friends.

Hendy-Freegard then told Atkinson his cover was blown and both of them had to go undercover.

He persuaded Atkinson to tell Smith, who at the time was Atkinson's girlfriend, and Hendy that he had liver cancer and persuaded them to accompany them in a "farewell tour" all over England.

Later he let them in on "the story".

He told them to sever all contact with their families because they were in danger just through being associated with him.

They moved to Sheffield and gave him all their money.

Maria Hendy became his lover and gave birth to his two daughters; she was later beaten up by him losing one of her teeth.

During their relationship he changed his surname by deed poll to Hendy-Freegard.

Next, in 1995, Hendy-Freegard had an affair with a recently-married personal assistant, Elizabeth Bartholomew (née Richardson).

He told her to take up loans, supposedly to settle her debts following her divorce, and then made her sleep on park benches.

In 1996, Hendy-Freegard told a woman in Newcastle, Lesley Gardner, that he needed money to buy off IRA killers, who had been released after the Good Friday agreement.

She gave him £16,000 over six years.

He also sold her car and again kept the money.

In 2000, Hendy-Freegard convinced a female company director, Renata Kister, that MI5 had told him to watch someone in the Sheffield car dealership where he was working and persuaded her to buy a better car.

He sold her original car, kept the money and persuaded her to take out a £15,000 loan for him.

He also asked Kister for a room for Sarah Smith because she was supposedly in a witness protection programme.

He told her that Smith could not speak English, and told Smith that for security reasons she had to pretend that she could not understand anything said to her, so that the two women would not speak to each other.

In 2000, Hendy-Freegard met a lawyer, Caroline Cowper, who was a customer at a car dealership in Chiswick, West London.

He helped her change her car, pocketed the difference, asked for more, persuaded her to give more money for a leasing business they would run together and stole £14,000 from her building society account.

They later became lovers and went on holidays all over the world.

They then became engaged before her family intervened.

When the leasing car did not materialize, he told her that the Polish mafia had taken it.

In 2002, Hendy-Freegard seduced an American child psychologist, Kimberley Adams, with stories of how he had infiltrated a criminal network and killed a criminal who had threatened to expose him.

He said he wanted to marry her, on condition that she would also become an agent and cut off the contact with her family.

In 2002, Scotland Yard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) organized a sting operation with the help of Kimberley Adams' parents.

First, the FBI bugged the phone of the parents.

Adams' mother told Hendy-Freegard she would give him $10,000 but only in person.