By John Scheerhout,Rory Cassidy

Copyright dailyrecord

Jack Watkin is more used to the plush surroundings of the five-star Dorchester hotel in London than his current home – a jail cell. The privately educated son of millionaire Cheshire parents is banged up at HMP Altcourse in Merseyside, once dubbed the nation’s most dangerous prison. The self-styled ‘Kardashian of Cheshire’ in on remand at the nick while he awaits sentencing over a string of astounding frauds where he used his charm and life of privilege to defraud a string of victims in what detectives have described as the ‘frenzied’ secondary market of perhaps the world’s most sought-after accessory: the Hermes handbag. You don’t just own a Hermes handbag, if you are lucky enough to have one. Rather it owns you. If you were to go to the Hermes counter at Selfridges in Manchester with £20,000 in your pocket, that wouldn’t do the trick. Not by a long way. First you have to convince the Paris-based fashion brand you are worthy of owning of their prized handbags. You are then invited to join a waiting list on which could be for years, without any guarantees you’d get the chance to purchase one. If you do manage to buy one, a Hermes handbag is one of those rare commodities that’s worth way more than the price you paid for it the moment you walk out of the store. It was in this fevered secondary market that Jack Watkins flourished even though, actually, by then this son of a wealthy property developer was jobless, bankrupt and had no money he hadn’t taken from others. Educated at the £4,500-a-year The Ryleys private school close to his home in Alderley Edge, he wanted for nothing in his early years. In 2016, the then 17-year-old Watkin appeared in a Channel 4 documentary called ‘The Rich Kids of Instagram’. It showed him shopping for a new car at a Rolls Royce dealership in Wilmslow. He showed off his £2,000 bright red Christian Louboutin trainers, bragging: “We buy so many things then it’s like ‘How are we going carry all these things?’ It’s like a work-out really.” His social media showed him jet-setting around the world, enjoying lavish yacht parties and staying and dining at the best hotels. The police investigation into him revealed The Dorchester hotel in London – Mayfair was said to be his playground – billed him for £139,000 for the 268 nights he spent at the five-star hotel in three years. In reality the split of his parents had left him without the funding he had grown used to in his earlier years. He was unemployed and resorted to maintaining the lifestyle he so loved with loans from banks or pawnbrokers or by ripping off his victims, among them his own father. Today the 26-year-old is behind bars, awaiting what a judge has promised will be a jail sentence after he admitted six counts of fraud against four people totalling £420,000 on the eve of his trial at Chester Crown Court in June. But police believe there are many more uber-wealth victims of the conman who are simply too embarrassed to make a statement. It’s thought they have written off losses in the millions of pounds. While many victims are believed to have simply written off huge losses, Christine Colbert, 59, from Macclesfield, refused to let him get away with it. The owner of a boutique called Dress Cheshire in Prestbury, Christine was a key player in this secondary market. Manchester Evening News reports Watkin called her in 2020 to say he was interested in buying a Hermes Birkin which was worth about £40,000 at today’s prices. He boasted of a string of uber-wealthy clients willing to pay even more, and they could split the profits. She said: “He approached me to say he was interested in buying it, which wouldn’t be unusual. “He came in and he wasn’t what I was expecting. He was very knowledgable about the Hermes brand. This wasn’t something he had picked up on Google. He had been selling this lifestyle and he was mixing with high society. My little shop was a magnet for him of bags and a potential investment opportunity.” Watkin became a regular in the shop, even visiting Christine at her home . “We had a common interest in Hermes bags. It’s a bit like boys talking about football. These are collectors’ items which are very, very hard to get hold of,” she said. “It all went horribly wrong.” She said by 2022 she ‘knew he was a scammer and I probably wasn’t going to get my money back’. “He had handbags of mine he had not returned and money (for bags) he had not returned,” said Christine, adding she had reimbursed one unwitting customer with £17,000 of her own money for a bag Watkin had taken for a potential sale and never gave back. He paid me back little bits of money but by that time I knew I was into £100,000. “He’d say I’ve got money coming at the end of the month but it never came and I became suspicious. When I spoke to him about it, he kept reassuring me he’s just waiting for someone to pay him and not to worry about it. But time went on and on. I think he’s a complete loner who buys his own lies. “He’s writing a history in his own head and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with living his life with other people’s money. He’s a narcissist. As far as he’s concerned, they can afford it and they will carry on. He’s chosen his victims very carefully, a lot of them of such wealth that I know they have just written this off. It’s not even a £500,000 fraud. He’s had millions of pounds. “What he did was disgusting. I feel sick I allowed him into my home and into my shop. He was quite charismatic, quite charming, quite fun. It’s when you started talking about when the money was coming back, that’s when he started talking in riddles to the point you were embarrassed to ask. “He’d bring you a little gift, some Chanel No 5. After a while, I was like ‘thank you for the gift but where’s my £100,000?’. I feel completely humiliated. He was completely taking the biscuit. It’s embarrassing. I could not sleep. I felt sick. I could not talk to my own family. You feel embarrassed and you feel a fool.” Det Con Gareth Yates , of the economic crime unit of Cheshire Police, said he was ‘fully aware there are more people out there’ who were defrauded by Watkin. He took advantage of the fact wealthy customers were ‘queueing up’ for the chance of buying a Hermes bag in a ‘frenzied’ secondary market. Watkin’s crimes began to unravel in the spring of 2024 when Christine and another victim arranged to meet him at The Merlin hotel in Alderley Edge where officers from Cheshire Police were there to arrest him in the car park. Cops seized two mobile phones from him which were analysed and were later found to contain hundreds of indecent images of children. When he was released on bail, Watkin failed to show up as required for another police interview and he was circulated as ‘wanted’ by the force. He even phoned the officers who were looing for him to demand their public appeal to trace him be taken down, a plea which was refused. He remained at large. He was arrested again at Macclesfield train station on a service from London, which cops described as his ‘playground’. DC Yates described Watkin as ‘arrogant’ and a ‘classic entitled rich-kid’. The detective continued: “People were queuing up for his services because of the demand for this brand. “It created this mayhem and frenzy. People wanted these bags because you just couldn’t get them.” The officer added: “He was from a wealth family. Unfortunately his mum and dad split up and as a result of that he was left floundering in this world where he had been used to a luxury lifestyle.” Judge Simon Berkson has warned Watkin he faces jail when he is sentenced. He said at a hearing in June: “You have today pleaded guilty to a number of charges of fraud. Those charges are serious and involve a significant amount of loss to victims of your fraud. There’s no doubt only one sentence must follow from those guilty pleas.” He will also be sentenced on five counts of making indecent images of children , two counts of possessing indecent images of a child, possessing prohibited images and possessing an extreme pornographic image. A further count of fraud and two counts of theft were ordered to lie on file. Watkin was remanded in custody after he admitted the fraud charges where he has remained ever since, holed up at HMP Altcourse in Merseyside which is one of the country’s most infamous prisons. Senior Crown Prosecutor Laura Atherton, of the Crown Prosecution Service, spoke after his conviction. He said: “Jack Watkin was a serial liar who funded his luxury lifestyle by defrauding others, including his own father and a long-time friend, of large sums of money over several years. He would tell his victims that he had connections that could source luxury goods for them, predominantly handbags such as Birkins and Hermès, or that he could get them himself. “Some of the victims wanted the bags for themselves or as gifts to others. Others thought they were entering into a genuine business opportunity, lending Watkin money to buy luxury items that he’d told them would generate a profit. It was all lies. Most of the goods and profits never materialised and the loans were never repaid in full. “Jack Watkin presented a lavish picture of himself on social media. But behind the scenes he was unemployed and using other people’s money to fund this lifestyle, such as living and dining in luxury five-star hotels. During the investigation, police also discovered indecent images of children on Watkin’s device, including the most serious category of images. “This case has been a complicated one with many layers, and the Crown Prosecution Service has worked diligently alongside Cheshire Police to bring justice to the victims of Watkin’s offending. The CPS would like to thank both the police and the victims for their help and cooperation in bringing Jack Watkin to justice.”