Ex-rugby star jailed for fraud

A former British Lion was jailed for five years after he admitted plundering the trust fund of the man he once regarded as a mentor. Tony Neary, one of the golden boys of rugby union's amateur era, admitted 12 charges of theft totalling more than pounds 288,000.

Two further charges of fraud, totalling pounds 450,000, were denied by Neary, formerly of Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and were allowed to stay on the records. Liverpool Crown Court heard how the theft between December 1991 to November 1992 related to two funds set up by the late Manchester lawyer John Gorna, for whom Neary had worked.

The court was told how Neary, 49, a solicitor, had once stood on top of the world but had since divorced and was now bankrupt.

Sentencing Neary, who won 43 caps for England, David Clarke, QC, Recorder of Liverpool, said: "You have to be sentenced for the offences which you committed."