A former Arsenal academy star has been sentenced to more than two years in jail after being found guilty of stealing money from his girlfriend and fraudulently processing refunds at a Pizza Hut.
Jaydon Thorbourne, a defender who had also spent time at Crystal Palace, sustained a career-ending hip injury aged 18 and in the eight years since he has been found guilty of 27 offences of fraud.
At Harrow Crown Court last Friday, Thorbourne, who was already behind bars for assaulting a taxi driver, was handed a two year and five months sentence for a range of charges that included cloning a girlfriend’s bank card.
Thorbourne, 26, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possession of a false identification document, seven counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of possession of an article for use in fraud, and possession of cannabis.
One of the fraud charges was related to Thorbourne booking himself into the Citadines hotel in Islington in 2021 under a different name and using the card machine to process more than £9,000 of refunds to himself.
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And in a separate charge he was found to have processed £7,307 in refunds by using staff card machines at a Pizza Hut in January 2022.
He was also sentenced for repeatedly punching a taxi driver in the face in June 2019 but has been in custody since last August after admitting to that assault.
“Mr Thorbourne has a history with Arsenal Football Club,” defence barrister Jack Kiffin told the sentencing hearing. “He was widely considered as someone who was going to make it in football, but a hip injury ended his career and his criminality began.”
Mr Kiffin added: “This is a man who, from the age of eight to 18, thought life was going in one direction and then found it was not. He was replicating the lifestyle he thought he was going to have. It doesn’t excuse his behaviour but it is an important light in which to see his behaviour.”
In a victim-impact statement, his former girlfriend said: “I opened myself up and let him into my life, he met my close friends and stayed at my flat. It has been very difficult to trust people’s intentions. I feel like he was two different people – he has a Jekyll and Hyde character.”
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