Ex-Brookside actor Philip Foster jailed over £13.6m sham modelling-agency fraud

Mixed · 2Former Brookside actor Philip Foster has been jailed over a fraud in which sham modelling agencies and photographic studios took about £13.6 million from aspiring models and their parents. 1 2 Mixed · 2Foster, who played Christian Wright in the Channel 4 soap, was convicted of fraud and money laundering; the Mirror gives his age as 51. 1 2 Mixed · 2A six-year investigation by National Trading Standards (NTS) found that more than 6,000 victims paid money after being falsely promised paid modelling work, in a scheme that ran for about eight years. 1 2

Mixed · 2Victims were targeted through social media and studio adverts, told they had potential and invited to a supposedly free test shoot. They were then told they had to buy their portfolio pictures to join an agency, some using credit deals arranged by the fraudsters and others payday loans, and received poor-quality digital photographs with no real chance of paid work. 1 2 Left · 1The agencies and studios operated in London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Coventry and Nottingham. The Mirror says Foster ran the operation from Spain, where he had lived for at least 15 years, through associates in England, and that the agencies were dissolved and rebranded repeatedly to avoid detection and paid no tax. 1 Mixed · 2Foster skipped bail before trial and was sentenced in his absence at Sheffield Crown Court to eight-and-a-half years. He was arrested by the Guardia Civil in Alicante in September and extradited to the UK on 8 October, according to the Mirror, which says he is held at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. 1 2

Mixed · 2Digital Spy reports that after extradition Foster received an extra six-month sentence for attempting to evade justice, making nine years in total, and that co-defendants had already been sentenced. Judge David Dixon told him: "You were a coward, you decided to hide and didn't come and face the music." The Mirror, by contrast, describes the eight-and-a-half-year term as the sentence and does not mention an extra term. 2 1 Mixed · 2The judge said Foster had bought designer watches and a Porsche for his daughter and was photographed on yachts, showing a "lifestyle based on the income from this illegal scheme". The Mirror also says a search of Foster's home in Spain found €22,000 and several false documents, and that Foster's son Michael helped by smuggling cash to Spain. 2 1 Centre · 1NTS chairman Lord Bichard said Foster's "cruel exploits left thousands of victims in serious debt, causing lasting emotional distress and significant financial pressures". 2

Mixed · 2Defence barrister Anthony Barraclough told the court Foster stayed in Spain out of grief after the death of his wife, Nicola Jones, from illness in May, and the killing of his son Michael around Christmas 2025. He conceded: "He has had a great deal going on, of a terrible nature, but he is nevertheless an absconder." 1 2 Left · 1The Mirror says Merseyside Police reported earlier this year a concern for the safety of a 28-year-old man from Merseyside in Spain and were assisting the National Crime Agency and Spanish authorities. It says Spanish police have placed a secrecy order on the case, and describes the son's death as "alleged" murder. 1