Jailed money launderer must sell her Windermere mansion to settle bill

9:16am Friday 19th March 2010

By Mike Addison

A WOMAN who lived a life of luxury funded by her husband’s multi million pound drugs empire has been ordered to pay back every penny she has.

Sharon Ambrose, 49, will even have to sell her £450,000 mansion in Storrs Park, Windermere, to settle the bill imposed by a judge under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Ambrose was married to Liverpool-born Barry George Tymoszycki, who divorced her shortly before they were both arrested by police investigating the importation of £35 million worth of cannabis into Windermere.

But Ambrose was jailed for four years in January last year after being found guilty at Carlisle Crown Court of laundering money he had made.

At the same court last week she agreed that she had benefited to the tune of £647,774 from her criminal activities.

She was ordered to cash in all her assets to pay back as much as she could realise – £196,854, which included the £180,625 equity she holds in the Windermere house.

Two years will be added to her prison sentence if she fails to pay within six months.

During the trial the court heard how Tymoszycki bought the house in the exclusive Storrs Park in 2005, in Ambrose’s name, and – even though they were then divorced – lived there with her for much of the time.

He spent more than £70,000 doing the house up, even though neither he nor his ex wife worked or paid tax.

The house was fitted with such things as an £11,000 kitchen, a £4,000 oak staircase, a £3,699 plasma television and a £1,700 burglar alarm.

At about the same time he also bought a BMW, a Mercedes and a Porsche – together costing more than £100,000, and the couple took expensive holidays abroad and considered buying property in places such as Portugal, Morocco and the Cape Verde islands. Their lifestyle, the prosecution told the jury, was “entirely funded by their criminal activities”.

At last week’s hearing two male members of the gang were also made subject to the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Angus McDonald, 38, of Craig Walk, Windermere, who was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison, agreed he had benefited by £600.

This sum will be taken out of the £900 the police seized from him on his arrest.

Duncan William Maxwell, 45, of Lake Road, Bowness, who got two-and-a-half years behind bars was ordered to pay back a nominal £1 since, though he received £1,600 benefit from his crimes, he had no realisable assets.