Love Island star Dani Dyer's boyfriend Sammy Kimmence jailed for 'despicable' frauds on OAPs

Portsmouth Crown Court today heard Sammy Kimmence’s crooked actions left an RAF veteran ‘living on the breadline’ and unable to replace his broken cooker after being fleeced of his life savings.

Prosecutor Michael Mason said Kimmence, 25, was in sales and administration earning £21,000 a year for a sports betting business when he met his elderly victims.

He handled incoming calls for Equine Global Sports Limited, a company that placed bets for its clients, when he spoke to Havant resident Peter Martin, 91, and dementia sufferer Peter Haynes, 82, from Okehampton in Devon.

When the firm went into liquidation in 2016 he stayed in touch, offering to place bets as investments for them claiming he was going it alone.

Kimmence – who wept during proceedings – ‘groomed’ the men, Mr Mason said, with Kimmence telling Mr Martin he had children in his family.

Such was Kimmence’s scam – lasting two years and 10 months in 2016-2018 – that Mr Martin ‘seceded financial control’ to him, giving the fraudster his internet banking details and credit card.

Mr Mason said: ‘It’s akin, one would argue, to the fox getting the key to the chicken pen.’

Despite plunging his victims toward destitution, Kimmence was spending their money on clearing his £989 overdraft, payments for his Mercedes A10, a holiday in Ibiza, payments to friends and partners, clothes, a phone contract, McDonald’s and cash withdrawals.

Kimmence boozed and took class A drugs – all funded by the victims’ money.

He committed the fraud by splashing cash ‘living beyond his means’ when hoodwinked by the ‘glitz and glamour’ of the financial services world on nights out with Equine colleagues, his barrister Craig Harris said.

Jailing Kimmence for 42 months, judge Tim Mousley QC said: ‘Neither of them was a wealthy man and each of them relied on a state pension and a small annuity, and you persuaded them you could provide sound investment advice for them.’

He added: ‘What you were actually doing was stealing their money.’

Judge Mousley said mitigation included signs Kimmence had changed his ways.

The judge said: ‘You essentially treated the bank accounts and credit services of these two gentlemen as if they were your own.’

Kimmence used the name of unrelated S&S Trading Ltd and in one letter used a fake Gambling Commission registration number to make them believe his work was an ‘established, creditable business - it wasn’t,’ said Mr Mason.

He was arrested in March 2018 on the M25 at Cobham where he had £200 in cash on him. Over five interviews he denied any wrongdoing.

Just five days after his arrest he spoke to Mr Martin, who died in November 2020 while waiting for the trial, trying to persuade him to drop the police probe.

Veteran Mr Haynes, who was living on just £710 a month, said: ‘In one go all the savings that I accrued over my working life were wiped out. My bank account shows zero.

‘I believe that I lost £8,820 to Mr Kimmence. I was left sick with worry.’

He added: ‘I have worked all of my adult life and what was taken by Mr Kimmence was everything I had saved.

‘It’s no exaggeration to say that I was left living on the breadline as a result of his actions and dishonesty.

‘Possibly the greatest impact this had on me was not being able to help my daughter when she needed me.’

The court heard his daughter’s husband died in a crash in Australia.

In a victim statement former tank regiment soldier Mr Martin said: ‘I have been left at times very stressed over money having given thousands to Sammy who I thought was investing it for me.’

He said Sammy told him during the fraud that he had children. Mr Martin added: ‘If it isn’t true it’s dreadful that Sammy is a real crook.’

Between 2016-2018, Kimmence placed 154 bets but none of them were for the victims.

Prosecutor Mr Mason said it was a ‘very unpleasant fraud against two men who Mr Kimmence deliberately targeted’.

He added: ‘He targeted them because they were old, they were vulnerable and somewhat isolated.

‘The evidence will show as I go through this that this isn’t something he migrated into through friendship, this was something he planned.’

He admitted five charges of fraud by false accounting at Portsmouth Crown Court in April.

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Kimmence, of Richmond Drive, Rayleigh in Essex, ‘recognises his wrongs’ and is ‘working positively to put them right,’ Mr Harris said.

He is in a relationship with Dani Dyer, a former winner of Love Island.

Love Island 2018 winners Jack Fincham and Dani Dyer split in April 2019 with her later resuming a relationship with former partner Kimmence.

They announced the birth of their baby son Santiago in January 2021.

Kimmence was working as a broker in the latter stages of his fraud and told his two victims he was a ‘senior trader’. He is now potentially training as a quantity surveyor, the court heard.

Simon Clark, CPS Wessex Senior Crown Prosecutor, said: ‘Kimmence acted despicably when he duped his former clients into believing that he had set up a new company with which they could safely invest their money.

‘The CPS used witness statements, financial records, receipts and mobile phone evidence to prove that Kimmence had not invested a single penny of the thousands of pounds he had fraudulently obtained from his victims.

‘The CPS is committed to working alongside the government and law enforcement to provide a multi-agency response to combat investment fraud. CPS prosecutors work to seek justice in a variety of cases including those that cause the greatest harm to the public, especially vulnerable victims.’

Mr Martin lost £7,927 to Kimmence, who has no previous convictions, and Mr Haynes lost £25,992 to the crook.

Kimmence had £10,000 ready to pay back to the victims, the court heard.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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