Woman scammed by ‘Kardashian of Cheshire’ reveals how she caught him

A boutique owner who was scammed by self-proclaimed ‘rich kid of Instagram’ Jack Watkin today described how she ‘turned Miss Marple’ to catch the con man.

Christine Colbert, 58, had already spent three years trying to get back almost £44,000 she had loaned the 26-year-old when she decided to take matters into her own hands.

With the help of Watkin’s close friend, Hannah Jakes, 34, who was also defrauded of almost £100,000, the pair lured the fake millionaire, who was on the run from police, to a local pub with the promise of more cash.

Speaking after the former public schoolboy was convicted of the £200,000 fraud today, Ms Colbert revealed how she wore a ‘large hat’ as a disguise and hid in someone else’s car in the car park of The Merlin public house, in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, so he would not recognise her.

But as soon as the unsuspecting Watkin arrived Mrs Colbert swung into action and dialled 999. Minutes later detectives from Cheshire police swooped to arrest him.

‘Myself and another victim did go on quite a lone detective journey ourselves to bring our own evidence,’ she said.

‘There’s one thing Jack wants and that’s money. We just knew that if we could get him to a meeting, probably rooted in another financial deal, we could pinpoint a place.

‘I knew Cheshire police didn’t know where he was, so we did pinpoint a place and lured him to that spot and I dialled 999.’

She joked: ‘He wasn’t too pleased to see who was under the hat. I needed him to know it was me because I’d told him if he didn’t pay me back I would come out on this. 

‘He worked on the basis that people were too embarrassed or wealthy enough to write it off and I didn’t fall into those categories.’

Ms Colbert said she felt ‘hugely betrayed’ by Watkin, who befriended her in September 2020 and became a regular visitor to her shop, Dress Cheshire, in Prestbury.

She said he was ‘extremely knowledgeable’ about the luxury good market and persuaded her, and five other victims, to hand over large sums of money, on the promise that he could source exclusive Hermes handbags and sell them in return for a share of the profits.

But neither the handbags or the profits ever materialised and instead Watkin used the cash to fund his own lavish lifestyle.

Ms Colbert said: ‘Jack was an extremely believable person. His depth of knowledge of the luxury goods industry was quite staggering.

‘I was very much convinced by his lifestyle, which I could see on social media. To be fair, he was living that lifestyle, it just happened to be on everybody else’s money.

‘He was rubbing shoulders with significant, high net worth individuals, people of substance, people were following him (on Instagram). 

‘These were significant people in the arena of luxury goods, respected people. So, there was nothing not to believe. 

‘It was a very credible story. And he looked and spoke the part.’

Ms Colbert said that initially she was embarrassed that she had been scammed and hid it from her family.

But eventually she ‘lost patience’ and, in March last year, put up a post on Instagram warning others that Watkin was a fraudster.

The post was spotted by Ms Jakes, who had been a friend of Watkin’s for more than a decade and had also been duped by him, who agreed to help catch him.

But Ms Colbert said it was ‘gut-wrenching’ when police told her that ‘charming’ Watkin, who she trusted and considered a friend, had been using her cash to pay for his own extravagance.

At one stage he spent weeks living at the five-star Dorchester Hotel, in London’s Mayfair, where rooms cost up to £3,000-a-night. 

Police said his bill topped £136,000 in just 18 months.

He also paid more than £22,000 to travel around the capital in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and regularly visited Harrods, where he ‘scouted’ for victims and spent almost £68,000.

‘This was a very charming individual,’ Ms Colbert added. 

‘He’s not aggressive. It almost got to the point where I felt like I was dancing around him to try and get him to talk about what he owed me.

‘I don’t think he’s worked a day in his life. It’s a fantasy world that he lives in (where) he thinks it’s okay to live off other people’s money.

‘But this level of fraud against anybody is just unacceptable and I wasn’t prepared to stand back.’

Detective Constable Gareth Yates said Watkin had been declared bankrupt and the chances of Ms Colbert or any other victims getting their money back was slim.

He also said there may be other people out there who had been conned that had not yet come forward, so their investigation remained ongoing.

‘We will try and obtain any assets, but ultimately early indications would suggest that Watkin is an individual with a life built on social media, a life built on sand, and he has no assets to his name.’

Watkin is due to be sentenced in September.

For more on this case, including exclusive interviews with those at the centre of the police investigation, please tune into Friday’s episode of the Trial+ podcast. To subscribe go to thecrimedesk.com.