'Gentleman' conned family out of £4m

He seemed the perfect English gentleman who mingled with the rich and royalty. He was chairman of upper-crust club Boodle's, known as an honourable businessman, a former justice of the peace, and the respected head of a 70-year-old family firm, Simson Pimm Ltd.

Educated at Marlborough and Cambridge, he counted the Marquess of Milford Haven, a cousin of the Queen, among his friends, enjoyed powerful business contacts, and was an instantly recognisable face on the London gentlemen's club circuit.

But Roderick "Roddy" Shand was a colossal fraudster who cheated his family - including his 89-year-old mother - out of £4 million to fund his delusions of grandeur.

Last week Shand, 58, was jailed for two years after admitting stealing the millions from his family's printing and envelope-making business, causing it to collapse and leaving his wife, six daughters and son almost penniless.

As he was led to the cells at Harrow crown court, his wife Camilla, 55, and the children broke down in tears. She had stood loyally by him throughout a four-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

Mrs Shand, who suffers from depression and ill health, told the Evening Standard: "Why would I stand by him? The reason should be obvious to anyone who is married. I do not wish to say any more than that." While he networked with aristocrats, propping up bars at clubs like Boodle's, St James's, Pratt's and the Naval and Military, she spent much of her married life at home raising the children.

At the family's 10-bedroom Queen Anne home near Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire - paid for mostly with Mrs Shand's inheritance money - Shand kept up his image as the caring family man who would do anything for his children. He became chairman of the bench at Hertford magistrates' court and cultivated a reputation as honourable, friendly and polite.

A family friend said: "Camilla doesn't ride, ski or play tennis or seem to enjoy any social activities outside the close family circle. She is well-educated and respectable. When Roddy was at his clubs, she stayed at home. If she were to have cut off Roddy she would have cut herself off from her children and they mean the world to her.

"You could never ask her about him and if the question of his dealings ever came up she would simply reply, 'Ask Roderick'."

Away from the family, Shand could not have led a more different life. Boodle's chairman from 1990 to 1993, he traded on his club connections to clinch deals, and it was through these contacts that he met the Fourth Marquess of Milford Haven, George Mountbatten.

To fund his ambitions to mingle with the rich, Shand, managing director of the family firm, began siphoning off at least £1.7 million and set up numerous business ventures in the mid-Eighties. He bought a bankrupt US firm, which specialised in recovering coal from slag heaps, for £215,000 and set up Alderney Coal Company with the Marquess, who became treasurer. It failed and the Marquess later said his business dealings with Shand contributed to him suffering "personal financial difficulties". There was no suggestion he was involved in any wrongdoing.

Shand diverted cash from the family firm to finance debts run up in the Eighties when investments in America went sour. He also used the company to pay tax bills, cover losses on the Lloyd's of London insurance market, pay for membership and meals at Boodle's and St James's, and for shopping sprees at Peter Jones.

When cracks in the accounts began to show he said Simson Pimm had suffered irrecoverable debts. Between 1990 and 1993, it was plundered again.

His mother died in May last year, aged 89, owed nearly £1 million by Shand, who had deprived of a pension for the last seven years of her life. Under intense pressure to pay debts, he arranged for a solicitor to persuade her to sign over her cottage attached to the family home to raise cash. She refused after her son Gordon warned her not to.

Police say a total of £4 million is missing, but the family believe the sum is closer to £7.7 million.

Gordon, 62, a retired businessman from Acton Turville, south Gloucestershire, lost £2 million worth of shares in the business when it collapsed. "If my father, who personally appointed Roderick to run the family business, could see what he had done he would turn in his grave," he said. "It's incredible how he could behave so dishonourably, and especially to his elderly mother. The deceit, the lies were to save his skin at the expense of others.

"Most people would have been happy running a successful company and earning £150,000 a year, but Roderick wanted more. He joined London clubs and started his own speculative business ventures."

In 1993 after Simson Pimm's collapse the family moved to a £150,000 semi in Bishop's Stortford, Essex - though Shand successfully applied to the Lloyd's hardship fund and could keep his daughters at £9,000-a-year St Mary's Ascot Roman Catholic school, while his son was sent to Harrow.

Gordon Shand told how Roderick was in denial to the very end: "The week before the trial he was having lunch with his son at Pratt's talking about Bin Laden and world affairs. He has never shown remorse or tried to repair the damage. Instead, he maintained throughout he was the victim of unfortunate circumstances - but it was pure fraud.

"This was no Costa del Sol crime. What was so astonishing was Roderick maintained such an appearance of normality. Everybody believed him to be a good chap, a pillar of the establishment. No one would have ever suspected him capable of such a betrayal of trust.

"It was appropriate he went to prison - it is a signal to him what he did was serious. He damaged a lot of people and never said sorry. I do wonder what it is like for him in prison at night, and how his wife is coping."

His brother Alexander, 67, disqualified in 1996 as a company director for gross negligence in allowing Shand's fraud while chairman, said: "It's over and I am glad of that. The family wants to put this saga behind them and get on with their lives."