£500 loan to tide a family over Christmas turned into an £88,000 debt

A mother of four suffered two strokes and a brain haemorrhage amid the stress of being harassed by a loan shark, a court was told yesterday.
Debra Wilson, 40, paid Robert Reynolds more than £88,000 over seven years after borrowing £500 to buy her daughter a computer for Christmas. She had to remortgage her home as her payments and debts spiralled.
At one stage she and her husband, Kevin, were handing over more than £2,000 a month and their teenage daughter resorted to bringing home food leftovers from her babysitting job because she was “sick of being hungry”.
Reynolds, 39, of Stanley, Co Durham, admitted harassment with intent to commit violence at Newcastle Crown Court. Mrs Wilson said that she was disappointed after he was given a suspended 51-week prison sentence and banned indefinitely from contacting her family.

The court was told that Mrs Wilson, who at the time was receiving disability living allowance and now works as a receptionist, borrowed the money in the run-up to Christmas 2000.
Soon afterwards she was told that she would have to repay £750, with monthly interest payments of £250 until she could do so, and the couple slipped further into arrears as they struggled to meet Reynolds’s demands.
The worry put an intolerable stress on Mrs Wilson, the court was told, and she even resorted to borrowing her daughter’s earnings from babysitting. In May 2005, she had a stroke, followed by another one in August and then had a brain haemorrhage.
Ann Richardson, for the prosecution, said: “The final straw was on January 23, 2008, when her daughter came home with a bag of food leftovers from her babysitting job. There was no gas, the house was freezing and Mrs Wilson went to the police.”
Judge John Evans told Reynolds: “You are a person without a conscience and you should be stamped with a government health warning as anybody who comes into contact with you will be at risk of damaging their health. Your behaviour towards that family is beneath contempt.”
Reynolds said that he was penniless and told reporters: “Have a look in my accounts.” He was driven away from court in a waiting Jaguar car.