A timeshare salesman has been jailed for plundering his parents' life savings and blowing £27,000 on a doomed restaurant venture in Thailand.
Darren Salter, 46, cashed in £25,000 worth of premium bonds and stole another £2,000 investment from his father because he believed he could make a fortune with his new business.
The would-be entrepreneur did not consult his family before taking the money which he lost within weeks when his café-bar in Chang Mai folded.
Salter vanished in Thailand after taking the money and his worried parents called the Foreign Office to try to trace him before they realised what he had done.
He left his mother with savings of just £4,678 and his father with just £13,350 for their retirement after he forged their signatures so he could cash in their premium bonds.
Salter, of Hollingarth Way, Hemyock, near Cullompton, admitted four offences of fraud and was jailed for ten months by Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, at Exeter Crown Court.
The judge told him: "This was a gross betrayal of trust owed by you to your parents."
