THE estranged wife of a fraudster has told a jury that she never knew her husband had been jailed in the early 1990s.

Linda Hirst, who is on trial accused of money laundering, started a relationship with John Hirst a few years after he was sent to prison for a scam involving ex-miners.

But she told a jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday that she only found out about the prison sentence when new allegations of fraud came to light in 2009.

Linda Hirst, who denies the money-laundering charges, said when she first met Hirst he told her he had previously worked for ICI, Prudential and was a “top salesman” with Allied Dunbar.

After the couple started living together she said he persuaded her to sell her the home and invest £35,350 of her own money in his investment scheme back in 1999.

She said Hirst told her he was trading on the Dow Jones index and could get returns of 35%.

“He said it was a foolproof scheme and you couldn’t go wrong with it,” Hirst told the court.

Hirst said her daughter Zoe Waite also invested a total of £33,000 in her husband’s scheme.

Hirst said in later years she made a series of withdrawals from her “investment” to pay for various things including a mobile home, a £12,000 Mercedes car and a £2,000 piece of jewellery.

Hirst, 62, from Surrey, told the court that although she now knew the investment scheme was a scam at the time she did not.

Her husband John, 61, of Millroyd Mill, Huddersfield Road, Brighouse, has accepted his involvement in the so-called Ponzi investment scheme which defrauded millions of pounds from ex-pats in Mallorca.

Financial advisor Richard Pollett, 70, from Dorset, has denied being part of the scam to defraud investors.

Waite, 36, also from Surrey, and John Hirst’s 35-year-old solicitor son Daniel, of Marsh Lane, Leeds, have also denied money-laundering allegations.

The trial continues.