Romance fraudster loses repayment appeal bid

A notorious romance fraudster has had an appeal against repaying his victim refused.

Mark Acklom had asked the Court of Appeal to overturn an order to repay Carolyn Woods £125,000.

Acklom met Woods in Gloucestershire in 2012 and pretended to be an MI6 agent, a Swiss banker and a property developer to defraud her of her life savings.

At the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Fraser confirmed the Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation order and said the purpose of the law "would be undermined" if his appeal had been successful.

Acklom pleaded guilty to fraud worth £300,000 against Woods in 2019, though she has always said she lost closer to £850,000.

He was told to refund his victim £125,000 under an order made at Bristol Crown Court in December 2025.

Fraser said Acklom had "lied about his name, marital status and numerous other things" including his "genuine feelings of love" for Woods when he met her in Gloucestershire.

He added: "He said he wanted to marry her, and having duped her he took advantage of her trust and defrauded her.

"There is nothing an innocent person such as his victim could do."

Acklom also put Woods up in a luxury house in Bath, Somerset, but paid for it using her money.

Woods told the BBC she still did not believe Acklom would repay her.

She said: "I have given up hoping that anything to do with the criminal justice system will ever be of any benefit to me."

The Ministry of Justice previously said: "We do everything possible to make sure criminals pay what they owe to victims – including taking money from an offender's benefits or salary – and they can face jail for non-payment. "

Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation orders take into account how much money a criminal currently has.

Acklom's barrister Martin Sharpe argued that a previous fine of €423,000 (£361,542) levied against him in Spain should reduce the amount he was said to have available.

He told the court he could not "dissent from the motivation of depriving the defendant of his or her benefit from criminal conduct" but that it "must be within the defendant's means".

But prosecutor John Hardy KC said the "purpose of the [Proceeds of Crime] Act would be defeated" if Acklom's "unlimited ingenuity" allowed him to reduce his assets by taking into account unpaid fines.

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