A wife accused of embezzling nearly £350,000 from punters in a spread betting scam has blamed her husband.
Peter Plimley, 68, and his wife Wendy Plimley, 61, allegedly duped more than a dozen investors into thinking they had lost everything on a single massive bet.
Yesterday at Perth Sheriff Court, Mrs Plimley lodged a special defence of incrimination in which she claimed her husband was responsible for the crime.
The couple appeared side by side in the dock and denied embezzling a total of £345,359 in cash by pretending they had lost it all in one final doomed bet.
They are charged with duping 13 named individuals out of an average of more than £26,000 each using an elaborate scam which lasted for two years.
The couple, formerly from Church Road, Kinfauns, Perthshire, are alleged to have conned punters who invested money in a spread betting project with them.
The Plimleys, now of Craigdhu Road, Newtonmore, deny that on various occasions between 1 December 2011 and 1 December 2013 they made arrangements to place other people’s money on spread betting financial markets.
It is alleged that they set up an account with IG Index Ltd and formed contracts with their “victims” whereby they promised financial gains by speculating on markets.
They are alleged to have been entrusted with large sums of cash until finally pretending “all sums of money were lost in a single transaction”. It is alleged they knew the claim was false and that they did it to appropriate the cash for their own use.
Fiscal depute John Malpass told the court: “Given the nature of the charge there is an extensive history in relation to these matters. There have been in excess of 14,000 pages of documents recovered.”
The court was told that the volume of documents is so large that it has proved difficult for the Crown to pass the information on in full to the defence agents.
Mr Malpass said one of the alleged victims was working offshore in Nigeria and he asked for the trial – scheduled for 30 January – to be put off to a later date.
Solicitor Jamie Baxter, for Mrs Plimley, confirmed her incrimination defence, and the trial was postponed until the spring. Mr Plimley did not lodge any incrimination defence.