Hawke's Bay footballer had goals - now he's going to jail

Shannon Fowler, a former Hawke's Bay United national league fooltballer was yesterday jailed for fraud. Photo / File

A former footballer who turned to fraud to fund his gambling addiction built up a trust with one victim in his latest scam which led to her helping transfer money between accounts.

Shannon Gregory Fowler, 31, a former Hawke's Bay United national league footballer who has in recent years still been playing in the Central League, was sentenced to 10 months' jail.

He had previously pleaded guilty to 16 charges of obtaining money by deception, mainly relating to bogus concert tickets which he failed to deliver after an array of arrangements made mainly on Facebook.

Judge Bridget Mackintosh accepted, with some reluctance, the commitment by a generous aunt through defence counsel Alex McPherson, to pay reparation of $4516 within seven days.

The Judge noted that Fowler, having made it to his early 20s without any criminal record and on a pathway to an accountancy degree, has had two other prison sentences for fraud-related offences.

Among the history was a bit of code-hopping in 2011 when football-buff Fowler failed to deliver on tickets he purported on-line to be selling for the Wellington Sevens rugby tournament.

In that scam he fleeced victims of $6680, which was repaid in cheques from his family, who then found out he'd been diddling Work and Income in a benefits rort.

McPherson told the Judge that Fowler still had "strong family support" but knew he was on his last chance.

The Judge expressed her reluctance in accepting promises of reparation payment as opposed to money in court by saying that if it weren't paid it would be a "double insult" to victims who believed they would be getting their money back.

Fowler targeted people seeking tickets to Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, and Bruno Mars, and particularly the Homegrown festival.

He sometimes used bogus profiles in such names as Nohahs Noxal and Simon Shaw, and the name of a victim who ultimately went to police with money deposited in her account by another victim as part of the ruse pulled by Fowler.