A British fraudster who was the subject of a Netflix documentary after he used devious lies to trick women out of cash could spend 10 years behind bars after he ’deliberately’ ran down two French police officers.
Robert Hendy-Freegard, 53, will be tried in Gueret on Thursday for the alleged incident that took place in August 2022, French media reports.
The conman is accused of driving his Audi A3 into the cops while escaping from his hideaway in the rural village of Vidaillat in the sparsely populated Creuse region in central France.
Labour inspectors accompanied by police officers had carried out an inspection at the Beagle-breeding business Hendy-Freegard was running with his reclusive partner Sandra Clifton on August 25, 2022.
’While police were asking one of the partners to accompany them to the nearest station, the individual started his vehicle and hit two officers before fleeing,’ police in the Creuse region said at the time.
One policeman suffered serious facial wounds including ’multiple fractures’, while the other was treated for lesser injuries.
The Briton then spent eight days on the run before being arrested in Belgium.
Hendy-Freegard, who is dubbed ‘The Puppet Master’ because of the control he exercised over his victims, was jailed in the UK in 2005 for kidnap by fraud, theft and obtaining money by deception.
Hendy-Freegard, who is dubbed ‘The Puppet Master’ because of the control he exercised over his victims, was jailed in the UK in 2005 for kidnap by fraud, theft and obtaining money by deception
He became the subject of a Netflix documentary which aired in 2022
A notorious conman, Hendy-Freegard convinced a series of highly respectable women he was an undercover MI5 agent and they were IRA targets because they knew him, with several of his victims living in hiding for years on end.
As he became more confident, Hendy-Freegard controlled up to five victims at a time, keeping them in various ’safe houses’ around the country and using a mixture of charm and menace to keep them under his spell.
His crimes always began in the same way. He would meet victims on social occasions or as customers in the pub or car dealership where he was working.
He would later reveal his ’role’ as an undercover agent for MI5, Special Branch or Scotland Yard working against the IRA. He would win them over, ask for money and make them do his bidding.
Then he demanded that they cut off contact with family and friends, go through ’loyalty tests’ and live alone in poor conditions.
According to court evidence, he convinced seven women and a man that he was an MI5 agent protecting them from the IRA and forced them to hand over up to £1million in cash.
In this handout photo provided by the Metropolitan Police, former bar-tender Robert Hendy-Freegard poses for the camera following his conviction for kidnap and deception, June 23, 2005 at Blackfriars Crown Court in London.
Hendy-Freegard’s kidnap convictions were later overturned, and he got out of prison in 2009.
He met his partner Clifton, a dog breeder in 2012 on a dating app, and the pair kept 26 Beagles at their home in Vidaillat until his arrest.
Clifton’s children from a previous relationship allege Hendy-Freegard had convinced their mother he is a secret agent and is controlling her.
They tell the Netflix documentary The Puppet Master: Hunting The Ultimate Conman that they had not seen their mother since 2014.
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