- Rebecca Troy spent £13,000 on private gastric band surgery
An investment fund partner and his wife who used £200,000 of public money to fund a “luxury lifestyle” to care for their disabled son have been spared jail.
Simon Troy, 68, and his wife Rebecca, 62, ate at the Ritz, bought designer goods and used the money to travel to their apartment in Spain several times a year.
Mrs Troy also spent £13,000 on private gastric band surgery and drove a sports car.
The couple, who live in a beautiful, secluded £500,000 detached house overlooking the River Orwell in Chelmondiston, near Ipswich, Suffolk, have set up a fictitious agency and ex-boyfriend Toluy had claimed to provide a caregiver for his son Andre.
They also arranged a lower level of care than was needed for Andre, a child with severe autism, who is nonverbal, and with a mental age of 18 months.
The Toluys denied charges of fraud by abuse of position, but were unanimously found guilty after a five-week trial last year, confirming their involvement in one of the largest direct payments frauds in the country's history.
They were warned they could be jailed, but were released after receiving two-year suspended prison sentences.
Recorder Paul Garlick said: “This was an abuse of power, trust and responsibility of the highest order.”
“Any sane person living in this country would be appalled if they knew what you did.”
Mr Tolui yesterday continued to maintain that he and his wife were innocent, telling the Mail: “We have lodged an appeal.”
He is a partner at Faience Capital, an independent alternative investment fund that manages assets for institutional investors around the world.
According to his online biography, he founded a “fund of funds” for Société Générale in Paris, led the asset disposal program for Mosco's Gaznaft Gastrova, and was a major player in the oil and gas sector. He said he has used his experience to raise $600 million in development funding and has worked in the field for 30 years. A field in the Chicago Basin.
Andre's wife and stepmother, who drives a Mercedes sports car, described herself as “an experienced global human resources director.”
She served as director of three limited liability companies, but resigned from all three positions in February 2021.
During the trial at Ipswich Crown Court, jurors heard how the couple began receiving £3,112 a month from Andre, who is in his 30s, in 2014. By 2017, this had increased to her 16,605 pounds.
The money they are charged with was handed over between June 2015 and March 2019 by Suffolk County Council, which launched the investigation and then filed the lawsuit.
The funds were sent to a holding account run by Suffolk Independent Living, which then received instructions from Mr and Mrs Tooley to make the payments and ran a payroll service for the carers it employed.
But the couple forged invoices for caregivers claiming to be helping Andre in order to receive payments. Funds were kept in corporate accounts or transferred to personal accounts.
Andre was supposed to receive 24-hour, two-on-one care, but the defendants only employed one person for a few hours a day, the court heard.
They traveled several times a year to a villa in the city of Muilcia in southeastern Spain, and the ill-gotten funds were used to pay for flights and exchange money at Stansted Airport.
The couple bought a mobility vehicle for Andre, but his caregivers said Andre didn't have access to one and had to use his own car, but Andre was large and had become aggressive. They argued that cars were inappropriate because they could become violent.
The defendants also drove a top-of-the-range VW Toureg at a financial cost of £735 per month. This vehicle had a special license plate.
Designer goods purchased with the money included two Louis Vuitton bags, with witnesses saying Mr Trui had spent between £8,000 and £9,000 on his wife's recent trip to London. It was revealed.
We also held a Christmas party where caregivers were given Versace scarves.
When Andre moved into a housing association bungalow in Hadley, his father and stepmother, who married in 2005, spent £10,000 on furniture, but claimed they had actually spent “the bare minimum”.
At Friday's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Simren Singh said the Toolys believed they could “spend the money as they saw fit”.
He added: “Simon effectively treated the money that came in as one big pot of income that he could use.”
The defendants were ordered to complete 20 days of rehabilitation and Mr Toluy was ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work. His wife was deemed physically incapable of doing this.
Suffolk County Council plans to recover the £207,650 Troy pocketed at a Proceeds of Crime hearing at a later date.
Bessie Hoffensperger, city council member responsible for adult care, said: “Apart from the fact that these people were intentionally cutting the time they cared for disabled people and pocketing the rest to fund their own lavish lifestyles.'' “It's about that,” he said.
“The fact that that person was my son is shocking and horrifying to me.”
Authorities said they had taken over Andre's care.
