Dealer Keith Preddie forced girlfriend to take bank cash

Published: 12 March 2010
by DAVID ST GEORGE

CONVICTED drug dealer Keith Preddie, whose bank manager lover said he forced her to steal almost £1million for him, has been jailed for three years.

Preddie, 31, of St John’s Way, Archway, was found guilty of laundering £145,000 of the money by an Old Bailey jury last month.

He denied helping Aina Wadsworth, 28, to take the cash from the branch she helped run in Golders Green, north London.

Jurors cleared her of the thefts she confessed to when they accepted her defence of crime committed under duress.

She may now face civil proceedings for recovery of some of the money which went missing over a five-year period from cashpoint machines she refilled at the bank.

Judge Richard Hone, QC, said that over five years Preddie used “oppressive conduct” towards Miss Wadsworth, of Waterlow Road, Archway, which pressured her to steal.

He took other girlfriends on holidays to Australia and the West Indies with the cash and also spent it on drug dealing, the judge added.

Christopher Sallon, QC, representing Miss Wadsworth, described Preddie as “a gangster” who mixed in criminal circles and was of a violent and sinister disposition.

Defence counsel John Lyons said that since Preddie split from Miss Wadsworth several years ago he had given up drugs and criminal associates.

He had worked “ferociously hard” to become a top-flight sales manager. “His criminality ended in 2005,” said Mr Lyons.