A SHAMED former Army officer, whose father was a Second World War hero and personal assistant to the Queen, could lose an inheritance - six years after being convicted of swindling his mother out of £460,000.
Court action to recoup the money was launched following Michael Pain, once a captain in the Catterick Garrison-based armoured cavalry regiment the Royal Dragoon Guards, being jailed for syphoning off money his sisters had entrusted him with to look after their mother, Lady Denys Pain, of Eddlethorpe Hall, in Ryedale.
Pain had been given the role following the death of his father, Lieutenant-General Sir Rollo Pain, who won the Military Cross for extraordinary bravery in repelling an attack by 100 German soldiers in 1945 and handled all finances for himself and his wife.
During a distinguished career Lt-Gen Pain, a keen member of the Middleton Hunt, in North Yorkshire, was also appointed head of the British Defence Staff in Washington and aide-de-camp to the Queen.
After taking control of Lady Denys’ finances, Michael Pain, who lived in a lived in a flat yards from his parents’ home, turned off her heating, claiming it was broken and told his family she was spending too much.
By the time the family realised Pain raided her savings to support his business and to prevent his home from being repossessed, he had reduced her to a penniless pensioner.
Pain, 57, who used to run an equestrian business on the family estate, was jailed in 2010 for three years after admitting theft, five charges of fraud and two of obtaining a money transfer by deception, all committed between 2005 and 2009.
After the case relatives said Lady Denys had been “totally destroyed” by her son’s betrayal and said it had made her life a “living hell”.
Pain’s sister, Audrey Mahoney, said: “My father was a wonderful man, he would be turning in his grave if he knew this had happened.”
Lady Denys died in a hospice aged 86 in 2011, hours before the original confiscation order was made under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
At the time, Pain’s assets amounted to £166,834.
York Crown Court heard when prosecuting authorities learnt Pain had recently been given some shares in his deceased uncle’s will worth about £28,000, they returned to court to apply for an extension to the order to make him pay over the value of the shares.
The case was adjourned until October 19 because there is a pending court case over a missing share certificate relating to the shares and their value can’t be realised until the civil case is resolved.
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