Gerald Corrigan: Crossbow murder victim ‘conned’ out of £200,000 in years before death, court told

Pensioner’s death outside his home in Anglesey had nothing to do with alleged fraud, says prosecutor

Anglesey crossbow murder victim Gerald Corrigan and his partner were allegedly conned out of £200,000 before his death, a court has heard (North Wales Police)

A pensioner murdered with a crossbow was conned out of more than £200,000 in the years leading up to his death, a court has heard.

Gerald Corrigan, 74, and his partner, Marie Bailey, 67, befriended Richard Wyn Lewis in 2015 and in the following four years paid out thousands of pounds which they believed was for property developments, land sales and horses, Mold Crown Court was told on Monday.

Peter Rouch QC, prosecuting, said the reasons for Mr Corrigan’s murder, outside his home near South Stack in Anglesey, North Wales, in April 2019, had nothing to do with the trial but the alleged fraud offences came to light when Ms Bailey was interviewed by police after his death.

He said: “Wyn Lewis is a conman, he is a fraudster, and, during the period spanned by this indictment, he conned a number of different people out of serious amounts of money, sometimes hundreds of pounds and sometimes thousands, many thousands.

“Throughout this time people lost their money and Wyn Lewis dishonestly kept it.”

He said Mr Corrigan and Ms Bailey met Mr Lewis, 50, in 2015 and came to regard him as a “good and trusted friend”.

Mr Lewis suggested to Mr Corrigan that he could make money by selling his home, Gof Du, for development and put him in contact with a potential buyer, John Halsall, and a man known as David who he said used to work in the planning department, the court heard.

Mr Corrigan spoke to the men over the phone, but police later found the numbers he used for them were registered to Mr Lewis.

He handed over cash to Mr Lewis for planning applications, the purchase of nearby land and to set up an offshore bank account, the court was told.

But Mr Rouch said no planning applications were made and no land was bought.

He said: “The whole thing was a sham, a complete con, which cost Gerry Corrigan and Marie Bailey many thousands of pounds.”

The couple also paid thousands of pounds to Mr Lewis for horses which he claimed to have bought for them, the court heard.

The court was told Ms Bailey, who has multiple sclerosis, transferred £50,000 to the account of Mr Lewis’s partner, Siwan Maclean, which she believed was to buy a former school in Llanddona, Anglesey, that she could sell on to a developer.

But, Mr Rouch said, the building had already been bought by the local village hall committee four months before she transferred the money.

He said Mr Lewis was paid by Ms Bailey to take away her car after telling her it needed to be scrapped, but went on to sell it for £5,300.

Ms Bailey estimated they had given at least £200,000 to Mr Lewis, the jury heard.

Mr Rouch said: “She said by the end she and Mr Corrigan were virtually cleaned out of all available cash.

“About two days before Mr Corrigan was shot with a crossbow, Mr Corrigan gave Wyn Lewis £200 in cash which was all he could afford.

“He apparently told Wyn Lewis at the time ‘there is no more money’.”

Analysis of the couple’s bank accounts showed extra withdrawals of £170,000 from the time they met Mr Lewis, which added to the £50,000 bank transfer by Ms Bailey would make a total of £220,000, Mr Rouch said.

Mr Lewis, of Llanfair-yn-Neubwll, Holyhead, denies 11 counts of fraud and one count of intending to pervert the course of justice.

His partner, Ms Maclean, 52, denies entering into a money laundering arrangement.

Additional reporting by Press Association