A FORMER chartered accountant fleeced a friend out of her life savings to clear overdrafts, a court heard.

Leslie Lesser, 77, is accused of convincing Maggie Tuttle, 67, to part with £333,528 through a series of payments into a bogus investment scheme.

He claimed it was guaranteed by a £1million company which actually had assets of just £25, Basildon Crown Court heard.

Lesser’s business Estuary Trustees Limited only turned a profit of £958 around the time Mrs Tuttle parted with some of her cash in 2008.

Peter Clark, prosecuting, said as soon as Mrs Tuttle’s cash was paid into the business account, various sums left it “like oil hitting water”.

Cash was transferred into four other accounts held individually, or jointly, by Lesser and his second wife Joyce Lesser.

Lesser, of Burlescoombe Road, Thorpe Bay, contacted Mrs Tuttle, who lived in Southend, in 2006.

He suggested she would get a better return on savings in her HSBC account through his company.

The two had known each other since 1996, when he got involved in her voluntary organisation, the Menopausal Helpline.

On August 15, 2006, she paid Lesser £25,000, for a “guaranteed interest of 2 per cent a month for six months” and a further £150,000 at “1 per cent interest a month over a year”.

By August 2007, she had paid a further £180,000 into a Bank of Scotland Account belonging to Lesser, which Mr Clark said was already “four figures” in the red.

Mr Clark, said Lesser used letters after his name and referred to himself as a Fellow of the Association of International Accountants to lure Mrs Tuttle into a false sense of security.

He said: “He was dealing with her money as if it was his own, in a way he was not entitled to. Only Mrs Tuttle’s money was keeping the defendant in the black.”

The court heard some repayments were made, reducing her total investment.

By October 2007, Lesser had close to £500,000 of Mrs Tuttle’s money, after she gave him another £288,988.

In spring 2008, she wanted money back to buy a new home. Lesser allegedly only returned £150,000.

Mr Clark said Lesser claimed the rest had been invested in an Italian property venture and he had no way of getting it back.

He said Mrs Tuttle, who should have been in a comfortable financial state, was forced to take out a mortgage to buy the house and use credit cards to fund improvements to it.

Lesser denies one charge of theft by finding of £333,528 between July 2008 and February 2011.

The trial continues.