Serial fraudster subjected victims to ‘wicked and despicable’ offences

Serial fraudster subjected victims to ‘wicked and despicable’ offences

17 September 2025

A LOUGHINISLAND man, who was a former Irish League goalkeeper, became a serial fraudster who subjected multiple victims to what a judge described as a “wicked and despicable” series of offences.

Kieran Nigel Gordon was due to be sentenced last week at Craigavon Crown Court but, instead, Judge Patrick McGurgan deferred the case until September 2026.

He told the 36 year-old the case was being put back for 12 months but that he would be reviewing it at the halfway point. 

Earlier this year Gordon, a former goalkeeper for Newry City and who was once jailed for faking his own kidnapping, admitted one charge of making off without paying his hotel bill and three charges of fraud by false representation, all committed between April and November 2023.

The charges disclose how Gordon, from the Loughinisland Road, fled Kilfeaghan Cottages in Rostrevor leaving behind an unpaid £460 bill, while the three fraud charges outline how he promised to transfer money to buy two MacBooks and a Longines watch, but never did. 

None of the facts were opened, but during an earlier bail application, a prosecuting lawyer outlined how Gordon had stayed for two nights at Kilfeaghan Cottages. 

Contacted by the victims, he gave the owners “numerous excuses but they never saw any money from the defendant,” the court heard.

The three fraud charges, the officer told court, followed the same modus operandi and related to two MacBooks and a £1,200 Longines watch.

In each instance, the victims had advertised their property for sale online and when each of them met Gordon, he showed them screenshots of purported bank transfers.

He made repeated assurances that his bank was “slow” so the money would appear in their accounts “in a day or two.”

However no funds ever transpired and the court heard that in one incident on 14 November, Gordon met a woman in the car park of the Kennedy Centre and claimed to have transferred 

her £2,950 for her Apple MacBook but once she left, he went inside and sold the ill-gotten computer to CEX for £1,650.

The victim alerted police and officers’ enquiries established that Gordon had sold the laptop to CEX and similar to the cottage owners, Gordon “made several excuses” for the fraud victims not being paid.

He was not arrested for three months, until March last year, when cops eventually found him at his girlfriend’s address, “hiding in a wardrobe”.

In court last week, when the case was being deferred for a year, prosecuting counsel Nicola Auret suggested that with money already having been lodged in the client account of Gordon’s solicitor’s, “I’m sure the victim would rather have the money now, rather than waiting a year.”

Judge McGurgan agreed and ordered each of them to be reimbursed, a total of £5,870.

Deferring the case to September 9 next year with a review on March 9, the judge told Gordon: “You are being given a possible lifeline Mr Gordon, take advantage of it.”