A BOGUS travel agent from Okehampton has been jailed for two years for swindling families out of £130,000 and leaving them without holidays.

Susan Lee ran a toy shop and preyed on friends in Okehampton and customers of her sweet and toy shop or her husband’s joinery business, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Lee, aged 59, told friends and customers she had contacts in the travel industry, enabling her to get cut price deals. She got families to pay up to £8,500 in advance for holidays and then made excuses when they called her to ask about confirmations of their bookings.

The court heard that Lee did provide some holidays but then she used money from new victims to try to honour promises made to previous ones. Some were left disappointed with bags packed on the day they were supposed to be leaving as Lee pretended she was still trying to sort out their flights.

Lee admitted fraud and was jailed for two years by Recorder Mr Andrew Maitland.

Mr Maitland told Lee: ’You carried out a determined series of dishonest acts based on a complete untruth, which was that you were in the holiday trade and were fraudulently offering discounted travel.

’You explained the reason why the money had to go into your account was because you were getting them as a bonus from your employment. It was absolute rubbish. It was a pack of lies.

’There were 13 families but more than 13 holidays. I dread to think of their feeling when they discovered there were no holidays and they were not going to get their money back.’

Mr David Sapiecha, prosecuting, said Lee started the fraud in 2010 and ran it until it was closed down by police in 2015.

Mr Sapiecha said: ’She fraudulently offered holidays while falsely claiming she was an employee of a holiday company and would receive benefits she would pass on to customers.

’Among the lies she told was that as an employee she became aware of cancellations. She used this to explain why documents were not available until just before the holidays were due to start.

’If she did book and supply holidays, she did using money from other customers. Other customers waited with their bags packed as she continued to reassure them they were going, when clearly they were not.

’This was a sophisticated fraud which continued over a number of years with a large number of victims. She used lies to reassure customers. We say they were callous lies and that she resorted to blaming others.’

Mrs Nikki Coombe, defending, said Lee never intended to defraud anyone but had got herself into a muddle and tried to keep the business going. She said there were many satisfied customers who had enjoyed the holidays they paid for.

Mrs Coombe said Lee suffered from diabetes and cared for her arthritic mother and her adult daughter who was suffering from a serious illness.