THE MASTER MANIPULATOR (THE PUPPET MASTER: HUNTING THE ULTIMATE CONMAN)

 

We're used to the Year of the Dragon, the Year of the Monkey and the Year of the Rat.

But has someone told Netflix that 2022 is the Year of the Conman?

Already the streaming giant has given us the outrageous true life documentary 'The Tinder Swindler' which exposed the antics of Israeli conman, Simon Leviev.

Not long afterwards they also released the drama 'Inventing Anna,' with Julia Garner playing a woman who in real life duped New York socialites into believing she was an heiress.

And if that wasn't enough, they have given us another jaw dropping tale of fraud, 'The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman'.

Sam Benstead and Gareth Johnson's three part documentary is more disturbing than 'The Tinder Swindler' because of the length of time the con unfolds, the amount of coercive control, the extent of the money that is bled out of the victims and the fact that it appears to be going on.

The series begins with siblings Sophie and Jake Clifton making a direct to camera appeal to their mum, who has become a victim, just in case she's watching.

Coughing and then staring intensely into the camera, Sophie says: "Mum if you are watching this, no matter what happens we will always be there for you."

Jake struggles. 

With his face buried in the palms of his hands, he finds it difficult to know what to say after seven years of being apart.

This prompts Sophie to ask: "Do you think mum would even recognise us?"

And from that moment you're hooked.

Benstead and Johnson's documentary begins with the Cliftons and their father, Sandra Clifton's ex-husband Mark telling how the family broke up initially on amicable terms until a boyfriend David came into her life in November 2011 through online dating.

David talked a big game, claiming he worked in the media and sold advertising to large companies.

He drove expensive cars and even took the family on holiday to Spain, playing Duran Duran's 'Ordinary World' rather obsessively during their road trip.

David was oddly secretive about his passport documentation.

As the relationship unfolded, Jake and Sophie noted he also appeared to have money but there was no evidence of him working.

Before we can dive deeper into the manipulation of the Cliftons' mother Sandra, Benstead and Johnson move 'Dopesick'-style back in time to 1993 to reveal an even more remarkable story.

John Atkinson and Sarah Smith were students at Harper Adams Agricultural College in Shropshire.

The English agriculture college was rocked in 1990 by the arrest of a Northern Irish poultry husbandry student Kevin Barry O'Donnell as IRA cells waged a bombing campaign in England during the tail end of the Troubles.

Two Kalashnikov rifles were discovered in the back of O'Donnell's car by police in London.

Remarkably he was acquitted by a jury one year later, just days after the quashing of the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six.

Within a month, however, he was arrested in Northern Ireland for possession of a rocket launcher but wasn't imprisoned.

Not long afterwards, O'Donnell was part of an IRA unit that opened fire on a police station in Coalisland in Co Tyrone but after the attack, he was gunned down in an SAS operation along with three other republicans in Clonoe.

With the IRA continuing to mount its bombing campaign in England as republicans edged closer to a ceasefire, John Atkinson reveals how he encountered Robert Friegard in a pub.

During the conversation, Friegard mentioned the O'Donnell case on discovering Atkinson went to Harper Adams and told him the IRA remained active in the college.

Asking how he knew this, Atkinson was told by Friegard he was in the intelligence services and that they were looking for someone to spy for them.

Convincing Atkinson he was spy material, a training session was arranged during which Friegard assaulted the student to gauge his pain threshold.

Atkinson was told to view his fellow students with suspicion and remarkably, Friegard soon duped his victim into believing the IRA had discovered their espionage operation and that they had to go on the run along with two women who shared his flat.

Friegard, Atkinson, his girlfriend Sarah Smith and Maria Hendy ended up abandoning Harper Adams and driving the length and breadth of Britain to keep ahead of their phantom IRA pursuers.

At Friegard's behest, Atkinson initially pretended he had terminal cancer so he could persuade both women to go on the road with them before they were informed by the conman it was a cover story to get them away from the IRA.

Moving from supposed safe house to safe house before eventually settling in Sheffield, his victims were urged to keep contact with their families to a minimum because their phones were bugged.

Standing over them, he even scripted their calls.

Even more remarkably, we are told Smith remained in his company for 10 years while he squeezed money out of her credit cards and then claimed her £180,000 inheritance.

While Sarah's father Peter had an inkling something wasn't right and tried to track her down, police were initially unwilling to get involved in an investigation as his victims had left Harper Adams of their own free will.

Friegard found his victims jobs to support their lifestyle but kept a tight grip on their lives.

Returning to the Cliftons' story, though, our worst fear that Friegard is Dave is confirmed 

Having moved into the family home, we learn how he turned Sandra against her ex husband and then gaslighted her children.

Alienating her from her son Jake and eventually Sophie, he froze them out of the house and racked up debts, eventually leavjnf a home which had padlocks on a bedroom door and newspaper on the windows.

What makes 'The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman' all the more jaw dropping is that a simple Googling of David's name would have unmasked him as Robert Friegard who was arrested in a joint FBI and Scotland Yard sting in 2002 for trying to perpetrate a fraud on an American child psychologist.

Friegard was jailed in 2005 for kidnapping, theft and deception for the fraud committed on Atkinson, Smith and Hendy who became his lover and had two children with him.

Two of his convictions, however, were overturned in a subsequent appeal in 2007 and the life sentence he was given was revoked.

Tragically at the time he was sinking his talons into Sandra's home, no-one thought to carry out an extensive search on the Internet of his history.

When police on both sides of the Atlantic did get involved, it was too late for a host of other victims of his fraudulent activity.

Other victims named Renata, Leslie and Solange were uncovered, with the belief that there could be many more.

As its tale of elaborate, sustained fraud unfolds, Benstead and Johnson's gripping three part series benefits from the first hand accounts of Friegard's monstrous behaviour given by the Cliftons and their father Mark, Arterton, Peter Smith and particularly his daughter Sarah. 

The series is particularly good at illustrating how coercive control works and how it is very difficult to combat.

Whether it is fear in the case of the Harper Adams students or love in the case of Sandra Clifton, once the perpetrator has commanded their victim's trust, they can get them to do pretty much anything by weaving a web of lies and turning them against their loved ones.

Viewers will be especially struck by the depths of cruelty that Friegard goes and amazed by his ability to avoid serious punishment.

With their dramatic reconstructions of some events, Benstead and Johnson do a remarkable job ensuring the jaw dropping tale they are imparting never veers into sensationalism.

With investigative reporter turned screenwriter Declan Lawn and his collaborator, the former photojournalist Adam Patterson directing an upcoming movie about Friegard starring James Norton, the spotlight on his activities is not going to go away.

Nevertheless he remains a free man.

And in a world full of gullible people that is a huge concern.

('The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman' was made available for streaming on Netflix on January 18, 2022)

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