A convicted fraudster who swindled investors out of more than £5 million will be sentenced along with his wife and a former accountant later this month.

A judge yesterday lifted a banning order which had prevented the reporting of the guilty pleas of Brighouse man John Hirst who funded a luxury lifestyle over an eight-year period with money mainly obtained from ex-pat investors in Mallorca.

Hirst, of Millroyd Mill, Huddersfield Road, had previously been jailed for two-and-a-half years in the early 1990s after he conned Yorkshire miners out of their redundancy money.

A jury at Bradford Crown Court heard how Hirst, a former insurance salesman, used some of that stolen miners’ cash to pay for helicopter trips to York races.

After several business ventures failed Hirst moved to Mallorca with his second wife, Linda, and the 61-year-old persuaded a number of ex-pats to hand over large sums – sometimes their life savings – for him to invest on the Dow Jones Index futures market with guaranteed returns of 18 per cent per annum plus a bonus of two per cent.

In June this year Hirst pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud and money-laundering prior to the start of a trial involving his 62-year-old wife, of Woking, Surrey, and former accountant Richard Pollett, 70, of Poole, Dorset.

Yesterday the jury convicted Pollett, who lived on Mallorca, of being involved in the conspiracy to defraud and last week they returned guilty verdicts against Linda Hirst in relation to two money laundering allegations and one of evading a liability by deception.

After more than 30 hours of deliberation they failed to reach verdicts on three further money laundering offences against Linda Hirst and Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC discharged the jury.

Last week the jury also cleared John Hirst’s solicitor son Daniel, 35, of Marsh Lane, Leeds, and Linda Hirst’s daughter Zoe Waite, 36, of Surrey, on further charges relating to money laundering.

During the long-running trial the jury heard details of extravagant spending on a £100,000 wedding party for John and Linda Hirst in Mallorca following their Las Vegas wedding in 2006.

They also spent thousands of pounds on cruises, hotel stays, jewellery and their home in Mallorca.

At the start of the trial prosecutor Simon Bourne-Arton QC said the whole case was about greed and had involved the use of a Ponzi investment scheme by John Hirst to dupe innocent people into parting with their money.

Over the eight-year period between 2001 and 2009 investors handed over about £10 million, but only got back about £4.6 million.

Mr Bourne-Arton said none of the money was ever invested as promised and it had been used in the main to fund the wonderful life of John Hirst, his wife and Pollett.

Hirst, his wife Linda and Pollett now face prison sentences when they return to Bradford Crown Court on August 31.

As he granted conditional bail to Linda Hirst and Pollett the judge warned them that they faced “dire repercussions” if they failed to turn up at court later this month.