AN ELDERLY couple have won £23,000 compensation from Barclays after the bank lost part of their life savings in a high-risk investment.

Bob and Lilian Baldwin, of Waddington, took legal action against the banking giant after investing £80,000 in a bond linked to Norwich Union.

The scheme, recommended by Barclays' Clitheroe branch, was labelled a ‘cautious’ bond but was in fact a high-risk investment - and lost the couple £14,000.

Great-grandfather-of-three Mr Baldwin, 73, a Barclays customer for 50 years, said he felt the bank had ‘abused’ his trust.

The former joiner, of Shireburne (CORR) caravan park, Edisford Road, said he was persuaded to invest £80,000 in 2006 after the couple sold their home in Oswaldtwistle.

Mr Baldwin said: “Barclays were terrible. I had been a customer for 50 years.

“We trusted them with our money because we don’t know about things like investments, and we assumed it would be safe and may even make us some money.

“My advice to anyone else in our position would be avoid these policies. Make sure your money is safe and guaranteed.”

The couple had taken £500 a month out of their account but accounts then showed just £54,000, a loss of £14,000.

Mr Baldwin added: “After that, I went to see a financial advisor we know and he told us to take our money out straight away.

“So we closed our Barclays accounts and switched all our money to Santander.”

Mr Baldwin wrote several angry letters to Barclays chief executive John Varley, before eventually contacting a specialist claims lawyer.

Barclays eventually offered the couple £23,000 in compensation after admitting mis-selling.

Mr Baldwin said he was ‘relieved’ the episode was finally over but said the couple would not be making any future investments.

The Baldwins’ case was one of more than 12,000 products mis-sold by Barclays, resulting in a £7.7million fine for the bank from the Financial Services Authority.

Paul McNamara, from Barclays, said: “We know that on this occasion we let our customers down and for this we are sorry.”