'Goldfinger' Palmer not to lose £33m confiscation, judges rule

The timeshare fraudster John "Goldfinger" Palmer won a court battle yesterday to overturn a record confiscation order against him for £33m.

Palmer, 51, from Battlefields, near Bath, Somerset, was ordered to pay £33,243,812 after being convicted at the Old Bailey in May last year of conspiracy to defraud holiday-makers out of millions of pounds. He was jailed for eight years.

But the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the man who has an estimated fortune of £270m and is listed as the 129th richest individual in the United Kingdom does not have to pay the state the money.

The Appeal Court judges will give their reasons for their decision in early October. But a restraining order over Palmer's assets will remain in force pending prosecution attempts to launch an appeal to the House of Lords.

Palmer was convicted last year in the second of two trials for masterminding a fraud using a network of companies running timeshares on Tenerife. He was accused of generating a scam worth £30m in which 17,000 victims were tricked into buying timeshares.

The confiscation order was made in April this year and Palmer was told he would have to serve 11 years more years in jail if he failed to pay. He must still pay a further £2.3m in compensation to 400 victims and £340,000 legal costs.

The man who was nick-named Goldfinger after being acquitted of handling gold from the Brink's-Mat robbery in 1984 still protests his innocence and his appeal against the fraud conviction will also be heard in October.

Last year, police revealed that Palmer had flown his friend Kenneth Noye, who was also accused of laundering the Brink's-Mat bullion, out of Britain after he stabbed Stephen Cameron in the M25 "road rage" murder.

In the Appeal Court hearing, Palmer's legal team said the £33m order was invalid because the law on confiscation had been breached.

His barrister, Alison Dorrell, added that Palmer was anxious to pay the timeshare victims the £2.3m as soon as possible, but was being prevented from doing so by the restraining order over his assets.