Is The Puppet Master real? Everything you need to know about the ultimate conman story on Netflix
03.02.2022 - 21:43
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
It is an astounding story of fraud, exploitation and abuse.
The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman is a jaw-dropping three-part series about one of the world’s most audacious scam artists who posed as an undercover spy to fleece at least seven women and one man.
Over the course of a decade, Robert Hendy-Freegard stole close to a million pounds from his traumatised victims - leading them to believe they were accomplices in highly-elaborate, secret service operations and their families were in danger if they did not obey.
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Hendy-Freegard exploited, abused and controlled them with extreme cruelty, confident his victims were too paralysed by fear to escape.
And the story reaches into the present day - with a family who fear for their mother’s safety.
Although hard to believe, The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman is based on real events. The true-crime documentary is streaming on Netflix now.
Hendy-Freegard, now 50, was born in Dronfield, north east Derbyshire, and started off working as a barman and car salesman.
He met his victims while working in the pub or car dealership, claiming to be an undercover agent for MI5 and fooling them into believing they were in danger of being assassinated by the IRA.
After winning them over, he conned money out of them and made them cut off their families - while coercing them to go underground.
His first victim was John Atkinson, a student at an agricultural college in Shropshire. It was 1992 and Hendy-Freegard, posing as an undercover agent, said another student at the college had recently been arrested for gun-running for the IRA.
Then he convinced Atkinson that he