Slouching down in the seat of her car, Christine Colbert hid her face beneath a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses.
Owed tens of thousands of pounds by one-time ‘friend’ and would-be business partner Jack Watkin, the time had come to spring her carefully planned trap.
Having enticed the 26-year-old to a meeting to discuss the purchase of a £30,000 designer watch, the married mother of one picked up her phone and dialled the police. Within minutes two officers were on the scene.
For Mrs Colbert, it was too good an opportunity to miss. As Watkin – dressed in matching leopard print trainers and baseball cap – was handcuffed, she emerged from her hiding place in the pub car park.
‘I couldn’t stay behind my disguise, so I got out of the car, took off my hat and glasses and took a photo of him being arrested,’ the 58-year-old recalled. ‘He wasn’t too pleased to see who it was and looked at me like he wished I was dead. I said, “Hello Jack, I hope you have a lovely day,” and then casually walked away.’
For Watkin, that moment, captured in the picture published exclusively here today, marked the beginning of the end for a man who dubbed himself the ‘Kardashian of Cheshire’.
Posing as a millionaire fashion influencer, he had persuaded friends, family and acquaintances to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds on the promise he could source exclusive Hermes handbags and sell them in return for a share of the profits.
But the bags never materialised – and nor was the money returned. Instead the ‘incredibly charismatic’ fraudster blew it all on designer goods and luxury living.
Christine Colbert hides her face beneath a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses
The 58-year-old spent three years trying to get back tens of thousands of pounds she had loaned Jack Watkin before she decided to take matters into her own hands
For more than 18 months he stayed at the five-star Dorchester hotel, in London’s Mayfair, where his bill topped £136,000. He also spent more than £22,000 on a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce and regularly visited Harrods, where he spent another £68,000.
Much of that went on designer goods and clothes, including Chanel slippers, Dolce & Gabbana tracksuits and Versace crockery that police later found in rented self-storage in Knightsbridge.
And, incredibly, he might have got away with it. Many of his victims were foreign. Others were so rich or so embarrassed at being ripped off they simply wrote off their losses. But Mrs Colbert was made of sterner stuff.
And so it was, one day in March last year, the fashion boutique owner donned her disguise and successfully lured him out of hiding. As detective work goes, even the police were impressed, comparing her to Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
Watkin’s arrest encouraged other victims – including his own father – to come forward, allowing police to build a case against him. This week, his trial got underway at Chester Crown Court. But after the prosecution opened its case, Watkin dramatically changed his not guilty pleas, admitting defrauding six victims of a total of £195,000. Another count of fraud and two of theft were ordered to lie on his file. And that wasn’t all.
What can also now be reported is how, on the day of his arrest, police seized a number of phones from Watkin. When they and others were examined they were found to contain indecent images of children and extreme pornography. Earlier this year Watkin was convicted of child pornography charges. He will be sentenced for both offences in September and is facing a lengthy prison sentence.
With Watkin having been declared bankrupt there is little hope of the money he stole being repaid – but his victims hope his conviction means others will not suffer the same fate.
‘If I hadn’t raised the alarm over it, he would 100 per cent still be doing this,’ says Mrs Colbert, speaking to the Mail this week.
Watkin had persuaded victims to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds on the promise he could source exclusive Hermes handbags and sell them in return for a share of the profits
Watkin – dressed in matching leopard print trainers and baseball cap – is handcuffed by police officers in Alderley Edge last March
‘I don’t think there are any morals, any remorse or any regret. I have been brought up to be a very honest, open and trustworthy person and to have that trust betrayed, it is just not right.
‘This level of fraud against anybody is unacceptable and I wasn’t prepared to stand back and let him get away with it.’
She added: ‘He has not worked a day in his life and thinks it is OK to take money off other people for his own lifestyle. He is completely deluded.’
In Miss Marple’s era, the amateur sleuth’s world was one of village vicarages and retired brigadiers. But while things are very different now, as the case of Jack Watkin shows, human nature never changes. As Agatha Christie’s character once astutely observed: ‘Clever young men know so little of life.’
The truth is, Watkin had a talent that he could have put to a good, lucrative and legitimate use. Instead, he was undone by greed and a very 21st-century desire to be the centre of attention.
Born in 1999, his mother, Jo Stringfellow, and father, Jason Watkin, an estate agent, never married. When their relationship ended, Watkin was raised by his mum in Alderley Edge, an affluent Cheshire village known as ‘the Knightsbridge of the north’.
Ms Stringfellow, who went on to work as a law firm marketing executive, was well-known locally – and always wanted the best for her son.
He attended a £15,000-a-year prep school before moving to another private school in Manchester. But he faced educational ‘challenges’ as he grew up.
A crocodile leather Hermes Kelly bag from Mrs Colbert’s shop in Prestbury, Cheshire
‘Jack was quite a sweet child,’ said a former friend. ‘But he lived in a fantasy world from about 11. He didn’t want to leave prep school and found the transition to secondary school hard and was home schooled for a while. It was as if he needed wrapping in cotton wool.’
And she added: ‘Even as a young kid he knew all the designers and the names of all the handbags. He was like an encyclopaedia. He was into fake goods even then – watches from China, that sort of thing. He always craved the finer things of life.’
But while his parents were both comfortably off – mum lived in a £450,000, three-bed semi, dad in a £600,000 barn conversion – the lifestyle he craved was in an entirely different league.
So Watkin set about building an online image of the person he wanted to be. Posting images supposedly showing his millionaire lifestyle, he amassed tens of thousands of followers on social media.
In 2016, the then 17-year-old even featured in a Channel 4 documentary, Rich Kids Of Instagram. In the programme, he likened his family to the wealthy US Kardashian dynasty, and bragged about having a fleet of supercars, including a Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Range Rover, worth £1.7 million.
He also claimed he regularly flew in his father’s private jet, had a personal shopper and was living in a mansion with a swimming pool
‘I don’t have to worry about jobs and I have unlimited funds,’ Watkin told the documentary. ‘So I love travelling to Bora Bora or Dubai for a quick holiday. But when I’m in London, I’ll often dine in Nobu or the Dorchester. I order a lobster or steak. I never look at the price because eating is essential.’
He spoke of spending £15,000 in a single shopping trip and of his most expensive purchase being a £500,000 watch. But even then, his outlandish claims were challenged by those who knew him.
‘I can guarantee that he does not have all those things he claims – 99 per cent of what he has said is not true,’ a friend told the Daily Mail. ‘He uses stock images on Instagram to make his life look better than it is. The family do have a holiday home in Marbella but claims that he’s got a private jet and that he has all these cars at his fingertips are just rubbish.’
Undeterred, Watkin continued to amass followers online, and in 2020 first crossed paths with Mrs Colbert when he visited her store, Dress Cheshire, in the nearby village of Prestbury. She established the business in 2018 as a venue for the sale of pre-loved luxury goods, quickly becoming a trusted dealer in luxury bags.
Pulling up in a Range Rover Vogue and introducing himself as Jack Holding – the surname is his paternal grandmother’s maiden name – Watkin revealed himself to be a handbag connoisseur.
‘I had an Hermes Birkin in the shop that was worth about £35,000 at the time,’ Mrs Colbert explained. ‘He contacted me and said he would like to come in and view it. It’s not unusual for those type of customers to request something like that. He didn’t buy that bag but he then frequented the shop and through a joint passion and understanding of Hermes bags a relationship formed.
‘He was hugely knowledgeable – to be honest I was impressed by his knowledge, it was very deep about the brand and the bags and that is really what lured me in.
‘You are talking about a 22-year-old who could talk the talk from a luxury goods point of view. He knew watches, he knew cars, he was clearly steeped in luxury goods which you can only get if you are living that life.
‘And, to be fair, he was living that lifestyle – it just happened to be on everybody else’s money.’
The scam was simple enough. Watkin claimed to have an ‘in’ with Hermes, a designer brand which only allows bag purchases by select registered customers.
Such is the huge demand for the bags that their re-sale value often exceeds their original retail price.
He would propose an arrangement whereby individuals would loan him large sums of money which he would use to purchase the handbags before selling them on for more. Watkin would then return the loan plus a share of the profits. He also offered to source luxury bags, or to sell them on their behalf to his network of wealthy followers.
Mrs Colbert’s first financial interaction saw her lend him £25,000, which he did repay, plus a small amount of profit.
‘The first time it worked, arguably, and that is how any fraudster begins,’ she says. ‘Initially, I did have my doubts and I asked him once, “If you are so rich, why do you need my money?” and he just said: “Why not? Let’s just do it as a partnership. I’m not greedy”.’
She adds with a laugh: ‘The irony of that!’
Mrs Colbert then loaned him two further lump sums of £35,000. Watkin also persuaded her to allow him to try to sell a number of sought-after bags, including a £21,000 blue Hermes Birkin 25 bag, none of which she ever saw again.
Other people were targeted in similar ways, including his father, from whom he had been estranged. The court heard that in 2019 Mr Watkin senior lent him £30,000 to buy and sell Hermes bags. Another victim was old friend Hannah Jakes who, the jury was told, had loaned him £321,800, but was only repaid £88,000.
Meanwhile, investor James Irlam allegedly lost £65,500, having been introduced by his mother-in-law, who was friends with Watkin’s mother.
Requests for the money to be repaid were met with endless excuses and obfuscation. In Mrs Colbert’s case he even gave her a Hermes Kelly bag and a diamond necklace as collateral – both turned out to be fakes.
And so it was in the autumn of 2023 that, at her wits’ end, she called police and reported what had happened to Action Fraud. But they wrote to tell her there was not enough evidence to proceed with the case.
Aware there must be other victims, she then posted pictures of Watkin on Facebook and Instagram, warning that he was scamming people and asking others to contact her.
‘I received dozens of messages from all around the world from people he had scammed or who knew he was a scammer,’ she says. ‘Even his own father got in touch. I sent all the messages to the police to build up a case and prove it was not just me. The response was positive but they didn’t know where Jack was – he was of no fixed address.’
And so it was that Mrs Colbert and another victim hatched a cunning plan to flush him out, arranging to meet him at the Merlin pub in Alderley Edge in March of last year.
The minute he arrived, Mrs Colbert called police. The rest, including his arrest for child pornography, is history.
In the meantime, Mrs Colbert has also had to deal with two high value burglaries from her boutique.
The most recent took place just weeks ago when thieves tunnelled into her shop from a boarded-up property next door and made off with £260,000-worth of designer handbags.
Despite this she was determined to face Watkin in court, and was due to give evidence on the day he changed his pleas.
In total Watkin was originally charged with defrauding more than £420,000 but admitted a figure of just under £200,000.
Police have not closed their investigation, believing there are more victims out there – although this time the boys in blue may have to get by without Mrs Colbert’s help.
As she wryly observes: ‘Having just been through two burglaries and now this, I am hoping to be able to hang up my hat – for good.’
- For more on this case, including an interview with Christine and investigating officer Detective Constable Gareth Yates listen to this week’s episode of the Mail’s award-winning podcast Trial+. To subscribe go to www.thecrimedesk.com
