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A notorious British conman who was the subject of the ‘Puppet Master’ Netflix documentary after he used incredible lies to trick women out of cash is being hunted by French police for allegedly injuring two officers while fleeing an identity check, officials said today.
Conman Robert Hendy-Freegard, 51, is said to have driven his Audi A3 into the police officers while escaping from his hideaway in the rural village of Vidaillat in the sparsely populated Creuse region in central France.
Labour inspectors, accompanied by police officers, had carried out an inspection on Thursday at the Beagle-breeding business Hendy-Freegard was running with his reclusive partner, Sandra Clifton, 49.
‘While police were asking one of the partners to accompany them to the nearest station, the individual started his vehicle and hit two officers before fleeing,’ police in the Creuse region said.
One policeman suffered serious facial wounds including ‘multiple fractures’ and remains in hospital, while the other was treated for lesser injuries.
Hendy-Freegard, a former salesman and barman, is a notorious conman who convinced a series of highly respectable victims he was an undercover MI5 agent and they were IRA targets because they knew him.
Several of his victims lived in hiding for years on end. All of them ended up giving him money – £1million he spent living out his James Bond fantasy of fast cars, luxury holidays and expensive clothes.
Conman Robert Hendy-Freegard, 51, (pictured) allegedly drove his Audi A3 into the police officers while escaping from his hideaway in the rural village of Vidaillat in the sparsely populated Creuse region in central France
Hendy-Freegard was the subject of the hit Netflix documentary series ‘The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman’
Hendy-Freegard was jailed for life by a London Court in 2005 for deception, theft and kidnapping in an extraordinary trial that heard from seven victims he fleeced out of money.
But the kidnap charges were later quashed on appeal and he was released from prison in 2009 and he was the subject of the hit Netflix documentary series ‘The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman’.
Hendy-Freegard later moved to France and Martine Laporte, the mayor of Vidaillat, said that the conman had been living in the village since 2015.
By Friday afternoon in France, a large-scale police operation was aimed at trying to find the fugitive.
‘All the soldiers of the department have been deployed as well as a helicopter from the gendarmerie to try to find this person’, said a Gendarmerie spokesman.
Ms Clifton’s children have claimed that their mother was being coercively controlled by Hendy-Freegard, but he denies the allegation, according to the judicial sources.
Hendy-Freegard met Ms Clifton, a registered dog breeder, in 2012, after which he started to pose as a breeder himself.
He showed off his Beagles at the Crufts dog show, using a false name, but stopped attending in 2015 when his true identity became known.
In the ‘Puppet Master’ Netflix documentary, Ms Clifton’s son Jake and daughter Sophie, who are in their 20s, said she disappeared after meeting him. They said they have not seen their mother since 2014, and claimed she has fallen under Hendy-Freegard’s control.
In March, the French authorities issued an order for Hendy-Freegard and Ms Clifton to shut their dog breeding business down.
Robert Hendy-Freegard is said to use the identities David Hendy and David Clifton as he travels around Europe. French said anyone who spots him should approach with care, and then called the authorities.
During his London trial, Hendy-Freegard was said to have lived by the motto ‘Lies have to be big to be convincing.’
The conman first struck in Newport, Shropshire, where wealthy farmer’s son John Atkinson and his then-girlfriend Sarah Smith fell under his spell.
To begin with, he told John that he was an MI5 undercover agent who was investigating an IRA cell.
Hendy-Freegard forced Atkinson to let himself be beaten up to prove his loyalty and to show that he was ‘hard enough’. He also convinced him to behave in a bizarre manner in college to prove his loyalty and to alienate him from friends.
Then, in April 1993, Hendy-Freegard suddenly announced his MI5 ‘cover was blown’ and both of them had to go undercover.
He told Sarah and her friend Maria Hendy that John had cancer and convinced them to accompany them in a ‘farewell tour’ all over England.
All three went ‘on the run’, carrying out bizarre ‘missions’ across the country before they moved into a rented ‘safe house’ in Sheffield.
He told them to sever all contact with their families because they were in danger just through being associated with him.
During the trial, Sarah recalled incidents such as being taken to a so-called ‘safe house’ with a bucket over her head, having to hide in cupboards to avoid visitors, and spending three weeks in a locked bathroom with little to eat.
Hendy-Freegard was jailed for life by a London Court in 2005 for deception, theft and kidnapping in an extraordinary trial that heard from seven victims he fleeced out of money. Pictured: Hendy-Freegard with one of his victims, Maria Hendy
Hendy-Freegard, who was dubbed ‘the puppet master’, forced his 10 victims to take on bizarre ‘tests’, including one who had to survive on rations of one Mars Bar per week
He had convinced her she would be shot by a sniper if she dared to leave.
John was ordered to get a job as a barman and John’s girlfriend Sarah had to work in a chip shop. They gave their wages straight to their tormentor, leaving them virtually nothing to live on.
The three spent five months in a Sheffield flat because Hendy-Freegard had forbidden them to go out. Sarah became so hungry she even resorted to eating leftover chip batter.
Like all his victims, the friends were also forced to obtain money for him from their families: money Hendy-Freegard spent on living out his James Bond fantasy.
Over time he bought himself seven BMWs as well as an £80,000 Aston Martin Volante, Rolex watches and Savile Row suits.
The group eventually split up, others took jobs – still handing most of their money to Hendy-Freegard – and Maria became his lover. She gave birth to his two daughters.
When Maria eventually found out about his other affairs and confronted him, he beat her up and threatened to kill her before he told her that she could not talk to anyone for ‘security reasons’.
As he became more confident, Hendy-Freegard controlled up to five victims at a time, keeping them in various ‘safe houses’ around the country and using a mixture of charm and menace to keep them under his spell.
Hendy-Freegard convinced John and his parents to give him £300,000. He was put into ‘training’, performing spurious jobs.
Sometimes he would have to wait for days in a certain place for a non-existent meeting.
As he became more confident, Hendy-Freegard controlled up to five victims at a time, keeping them in various ‘safe houses’ around the country and using a mixture of charm and menace to keep them under his spell. Pictured: Freegard and Maria with their two children
Eventually, he told his sister that the IRA was pursuing him, and the tale began to unravel.
His crimes always began in the same way. He would meet victims on social occasions or as customers in the pub or car dealership where he was working.
He would later reveal his ‘role’ as an undercover agent for MI5, Special Branch or Scotland Yard working against the IRA.
He would win them over, ask for money and make them do his bidding.
Then he demanded that they cut off contact with family and friends, go through ‘loyalty tests’ and live alone in poor conditions.
All had to carry out bizarre tasks which he told them were ‘tests’ set by their supposed ‘spymasters’.
He would claim he was going to marry his female victims, who often refused to cooperate with the police because he had warned them that police would be double agents or MI5 agents performing another ‘loyalty test’.
Another of his victims was Elisabeth Bartholomew née Richardson, who, despite being recently married, became obsessed with him.
She testified at trial ‘that she would have gone anywhere to be with Robert as he was great in bed’.
He told her to take up loans, supposedly to settle her debts following her divorce.
On 25 April 2007, Robert Hendy-Freegard had appealed against his kidnapping convictions and won. His life sentence was revoked but still served nine years for the other offences. Pictured: Detectives piece together their investigation about Hendy-Freegard
Meanwhile in 2000 Hendy-Freegard met successful lawyer Caroline Cowper through the car dealership in Chiswick, West London.
He helped her to change her car, pocketed the difference, asked for more, persuaded her to give more money for a leasing business they would run together and stole £14,000 from her building society account.
They became lovers and went on holidays all over the world, before becoming engaged. Her family intervened but when the leasing car did not materialize, he told her that the Polish Mafia had taken it.
Two years later, he seduced an American child psychologist Kimberley Adams with tales of how he had infiltrated a criminal network and how he had killed a criminal who had threatened to expose him.
Weeks into the 14-month relationship, he proposed marriage but told Dr Adams she would have to be a spy, resign from her job in Reading and be forbidden post and contact with her family.
He instigated loyalty tests and a change of identity.
Meanwhile he also flushed her anti-depressant pills down the toilet and sent her to live with her ‘very humble’ mother for three months in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
He also told Leslie Gardner in Newcastle that he needed money to buy off IRA killers, who had been released after the Good Friday agreement.
She gave him £16,000 over six years. He also sold her car and again kept the money.
In 2002 Scotland Yard and the FBI organized a sting operation. First, the FBI bugged the phone of the Kimberley’s parents.
Her mother told Hendy-Freegard she would hand over £10,000 but only in person.
Hendy-Freegard met her in Heathrow Airport where police apprehended him.
He denied all charges and claimed they were part of a conspiracy against him and continued this story in the subsequent trial.
On 23 June 2005, after an eight-month trial, Blackfriars Crown Court convicted Robert Hendy-Freegard for two counts of kidnapping, 10 of theft and 8 of deception. On 6 September 2005 he was given a life sentence.
On 25 April 2007, Robert Hendy-Freegard appealed against his kidnapping convictions and won. His life sentence was revoked but still served nine years for the other offences.
The Court of Appeal judgment played an important role in defining the modern offence of kidnap.
Hendy-Freegard is now in a relationship with Sandra Clifton and a regular on the dog-show circuit using the name David Clifton.
The couple met on a dating app in 2012 and Hendy-Freegard bought her a flashy car, telling her he was working in ‘advertising space.
Sandra’s relationship with her children began to break down, with Hendy-Freegard suggesting Jake, then 16, was gay and locked him out the house.
Sophie cut off communication with her brother and father, and now believes she was brainwashed by Hendy-Freegard.
Speaking to The Sunday Times magazine, she said she had an envelope titled ‘The Lies and Slander of Mr Mark Clifton’ pinned on her bedroom noticeboard for all her father’s letters telling her he loved her.
In 2014, Sandra and Hendy-Freegard disappeared and Sophie reunited with her brother and father.
The pair were desperate to find their mother, and researched ‘David Clifton’, discovering his real name was Hendy-Freegard.
However when police tracked down Sandra, and made her aware of who she is with, she dismissed the inquiries.
In the seven years that have passed since Sandra vanished from family life, her parents have died and she didn’t attend their funerals.
Meanwhile last year Jake tried to get the house his mother inherited from her parents protected for her by putting it into trust.
Sandra challenged the attempt and the two came face-to-face for the first time in years in court.
She accused Jake of trying to steal from her. He said: ‘The problem is my mum has been trained, controlled to do whatever Freegard wants her to say and do.
‘When the police found her to tell her that we wanted to hear from her and to tell her who she was with, she said, ‘I’m not bothered. I know who I am with.’
Hendy-Freegard has strongly denied accusations he is controlling his new partner.