BRITAIN'S most notorious professional gambler who once targeted East Lancashire has started a three-and-a-half year jail sentence for a sting which cost bookmakers £40,000 a week.
Conman John Bailey, 33, nicknamed The Pencil Man for his technique of pencilling winning bets on to already stamped slips, was arrested while on the run in Liverpool last month and appeared in front of a judge at Hull Crown Court yesterday.
Sentenced to three years for four fraud charges relating to defrauding Humberside bookmakers, Bailey, of Liverpool, was given a further six months for going on the run in January after writing to the judge saying he would not be attending the sentencing.
In 1998, he was jailed at Burnley Crown Court for 20 months for eight offences against three bookies, which included attempting to obtain about £10,000 by deception.
In 1995 he targeted Bradlow's Bookmakers -- now Stanley Racing -- in High Street, Rishton.
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