Page 10 QQQ Daily Mail, Thursday, August 8, 2019S
TILL hanging on the back of
her door is the designer
wedding gown Carolyn
Woods never wore. It is all
she has left following her re-
lationship with Mark Acklom.
The mother of two first met the
fraudster in 2012, when he went into the
boutique she worked at in Tetbury,
Gloucestershire. But less than a year
later, in what divorcee Miss Woods, 61,
says was ‘an act of the utmost cruelty’,
he had drained her of her £850,000 life
savings, as well as ‘life as I knew it’.
Yesterday, shortly after Acklom, 45, was
jailed for more than five years, a tearful Miss
Woods hugged her daughters and friends
telling them: ‘I’m just glad it’s all over.’
A judge was told she had been suicidal
and considering ‘ending it completely’ after
Acklom’s cruel actions left her ‘restricted to
little more than survival’.
In a highly emotional victim impact
statement read to Bristol Crown Court,
Miss Woods said: ‘Mark Acklom acted delib-
erately, and in the most calculated,
premeditated way, to defraud me of all my
money and nearly all my personal posses-
sions, and to deprive me of my home and
my job, thereby rendering me totally
helpless and at his mercy.
‘He also deliberately isolated me from my
family and friends, and played psychologi-
cal games to deceive me and engender a
sense of fear in me.
‘It was an act of the utmost cruelty,
designed to destroy my life for his personal
gain. My life, as I knew it, has indeed been
destroyed, and it has only been the love of
my two daughters that has prevented me
from ending it completely.
‘They, too, have been deeply affected by
what has happened to me. I have felt con-
demned to a life that I don’t want and I
grieve for the life I once had.’
The pair had met in January 2012, when
they struck up a conversation in Qetty Bang
Bang, the Cotswolds boutique where Miss
Woods worked.
Introducing himself as Mark Conway – and
19 years her junior – he claimed to be a Swiss
banker visiting the UK as he was involved in
a takeover of Cotswold Airport. He also told
her he worked for MI6, claming he was often
posted on ‘dangerous missions’.
‘He held my gaze and I felt slightly flus-
tered,’ Miss Woods recalled. ‘He asked me if
I had the jacket in the window in his size
and he tried it on.
‘He asked me my name and whether I was
married. He was very direct.
‘He was supremely confident but I didn’t
think much about it. I just thought he was
attractive and successful.’T
HAT evening, Acklom plagued
her with text messages. Miss
Woods agreed to meet the per-
suasive stranger the following
night at the Hare and Hounds hotel in
nearby Westonbirt – although at this stage
she remained cautious.
‘I walked into the library – it was only the
two of us there – and there was a fire
burning. “You look lovely,” he said, before
offering me a glass of pink champagne.
‘We chatted for a couple of hours and he
told me that he had flown in from Geneva
specially. He told me he had been born into
a very wealthy family but he had always
worked for everything.
‘He claimed that he spoke seven languages,
flew his own plane and had a photographicA SERIAL conman who posed as a
Swiss banker and a spy to swindle a
divorcee out of her life savings has
finally been jailed after spending
years on the run.
Lifelong fraudster Mark Acklom, 45,
admitted duping mother-of-two Carolyn
Woods, 61, out of nearly £300,000 while
pretending he was going to marry her.
Acklom, who was already married, has a
long list of previous convictions and at one
point was Britain’s most wanted conman. He
tricked Miss Woods into lending him £299,564,
which she believed was for renovation work
on a property he claimed to own.
In fact, he spent the money on a £60,
Porsche, trips to London and purchases from
Harrods before fleeing abroad. He also used it
to pay rent of £9,500 a month at the Georgian
manor they shared in Bath. Yesterday Ack-‘Ruthless, utterly selfish
and uncaring’Jailed at last,
the fake spy
who tricked
divorcee
out of her
life savings
you did get from her slipped
through your fingers like water.
Having cut ties from her, you
escaped from this country, and
since then you have not made
any effort to make good the
harm that you did.’
A European Arrest Warrant
was issued for Acklom in June
2016 when he was believed to
be in Spain, having been
released from a Spanish prison
over a £200,000 property fraud.
In May 2017, the hunt switched
to Switzerland after he was
photographed at a Geneva cafe
by one of his alleged victims,
who spotted him by chance.
In July 2018, Acklom was
caught while trying to flee his
luxury apartment in Wadenswil,
near Zurich. He leapt from a
first-floor balcony as police
raided the rented £1million
property, where he was living
with his wife Maria Yolanda RosRodriguez and their two young
daughters, but an officer was
waiting below and arrested him.
Acklom first appeared in court
in 1990 as a teenager, accused of
taking a credit card from a
woman he lived with.
A year later, aged 18, he was
sent to a young offender insti-
tution for crimes he had com-
mitted aged 16. He posed as a
stockbroker and convinced a
building society to give him a
£466,000 mortgage.
He also stole his father’s
American Express gold card
and used it to shop at Harrods,
lunch at the Savoy, hire a
limousine and party at Stringfel-
lows club.
He has since been jailed for
fraud in the UK and in Spain.
He has used a series of aliases
including Marc Ros Rodriguez,
Dr Zac Moss, Mark Conway,George Kennedy, Marc Saun-
ders and Marco Rossi, while
claiming to be a barrister, prop-
erty developer, event manager
and a gynaecologist.
Acklom’s lawyer Gudrun
Young said he ‘acknowledged in
full’ his crimes against Miss
Woods and the ‘devastating
impact’ they had.
‘He was genuinely romanti-
cally involved with her at the
beginning and was hoping to
pursue a relationship as he and
his wife were having marital dif-
ficulties,’ she said. ‘He is not the
first man to behave in this way
and he will not be the last.’
Attempting to justify his
behaviour, she added: ‘It is not
every day a fraudster uses
money from his victim to house
them in a Georgian manor.’
The location of Acklom’s wife
and children, aged eight andnine, is not known. However
Miss Young told the judge he is
‘very keen’ to return to Spain.
Outside court, senior investi-
gating officer Detective Super-
intendent Gary Haskins said:
‘Mark Acklom is a career crimi-
nal and a master manipulator
who cared little about the emo-
tional devastation he was leav-
ing in his wake. On the surface,
Acklom was charming, affluent
and successful. Underneath he
was calculating, scheming and
obsessive about money’.
Former Detective Inspector
Adam Bunting, who led the
team that ultimately tracked
Acklom down, said: ‘He was an
expert at covering his tracks.
‘While I’m pleased he has
finally admitted his lies and
saved Carolyn from having to
give evidence in court, a leop-
ard doesn’t change its spots.’Mortgage swindle: Acklom aged 16 Behind bars: Acklom in custodyBy Izzy
Ferris
DOWNFALL OF SILVER
By Izzy Ferrislom was jailed for five years and eight months
but Bristol Crown Court heard that his victim
is unlikely to see a penny of her money.
Acklom faced 20 charges and had initially
been accused of pocketing £850,000 of Miss
Woods’ savings. He pleaded guilty to five
offences and will not face trial for the remain-
ing 15 but they will remain on the file.
Judge Martin Picton told Acklom he took
ruthless advantage of Miss Woods: ‘It is plain
that once you knew what you might glean
from her, you set about doing so in a ruthless
and utterly selfish manner. You were quite pre-
pared to spin a web of lies, and you cared not
at all for the emotional impact. The moneyHigh life: Mark Acklom in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot with his wife MariaWOMAN HE DID MARRY...
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