A former financial consultant who defrauded 20 investors of over £203,000, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment at Limerick Circuit Court yesterday.

Before the court was Patrick Foote (46), father of three children, who pleaded guilty to 39 charges involving fraud and forgery of his clients' money ranging from sums of £270 to £97,000 invested by a publican. The alleged offences took place between April 1996 and September 1997.

Det Garda Kieran Glynn, Fraud Section, Henry Street, said that the charges involved embezzlement of money entrusted to him for mortgages and investments. The accused was managing director of the Irish Mortgage and Finance Bureau, O'Connell Street, Limerick. He had no previous convictions and was well respected in the community.

Witness said he did not think there was any money left to make restitution and he had no money himself. The accused was in serious financial difficulties at the time and the people who lost money came from all walks of life. The accused did not gamble but had a drug dependency problem and "certainly had the good life and wore the best clothes", he said.

The court was told that because of the strain imposed by his financial problems, he was now separated after a happy marriage of 25 years. He got involved in heavy drinking and got addicted to cocaine.

A Limerick general practitioner, Dr Gerard O'Regan, said the accused suffered from "a structural type of personality disorder in which his rational thinking was impaired". He had a faulty belief system and this was a fundamental flaw that he was going to find it very hard to change - it is his underlying problem. The doctor added that he was given anti-alcohol medication and was taking tablets for depression. His prognosis for the future was not very good because his structural personality problem was not going to leave him.

Mr John Edwards, SC, for the accused, said that his client ran an associated building company in parallel with his financial company. The building company was not doing particularly well and it became a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul in that funds deposited in one company were being used inappropriately in the other company with the naive hope of paying back. He was hospitalised as a result of alcohol and cocaine.

"As a result of his cocaine habit, he got into difficulty with fairly seriously unpleasant and unsavoury characters," said Mr Edwards.

He added that the accused's personal life was threatened and he suffered personal violence at the hands of one person who was supplying him with cocaine. The court heard there was no nest-egg of money secreted away and there was no prospect of restitution, and the family home in which his wife lived, had been remortgaged. The accused was financially destitute and did not defraud people for personal enhancement.

He was now getting a disability pension and that was what he was living on. He has no assets and owes money to all sorts of people. Even though his marriage was over, his wife was supportive of him from a distance and he has a good relationship with his three children.

Mr Edwards said the accused acknowledged that he had caused financial and emotional distress to the 20 people whose funds he misappropriated. He was very remorseful and acknowledges the consequences of his actions. "He was in court to face the music in what is essentially a fraud case," he said.

Justice Mr Sean O'Leary said he regretted that if the accused was sent away for a thousand years, it was not going to restore money to the people who had lost it. Those who hit the small man or small woman must expect little or no sympathy from the court.

Justice O'Leary said he took into account the fact that the accused had no previous convictions and had pleaded guilty in the case. An application for leave to appeal on grounds of severity of sentence was refused.

The publican investor who lost £97,000 was asked after the case if he would like to comment on the verdict and replied: "No, not really."

Earlier, he had said he was devastated by his considerable loss and he would not forgive Foote, as he could have ruined his life. It was a nightmare and he was just lucky that things worked out for him.

While waiting for sentence and on bail, Foote said he was sorry . "That is all I can say to people. Today is the beginning of the end for me."

Asked about the future, he said: "Of course, I want to rebuild and get on with my life. What else can I do?"