Social entrepreneur Adam Bradford's life was turned upside down last year after he discovered his father was being sent to jail in relation to crimes connected to his gambling. David, 58, had stolen £50,000 to fund an out of control addiction and left the family on the verge of losing their home with over £500,000 worth of debt
PRLog - March 3, 2015 - SHEFFIELD, U.K. -- In the 2010 British Gambling Prevalence survey almost 900,000 people were labelled as being 'at risk of becoming problem gamblers.' The issue is one not often talked about in mainstream media nor in the news.
For one Sheffield family, the stark truth of hidden addiction could not have become more hard hitting.
22-year-old social entrepreneur Adam Bradford from Sheffield has led a successful career to date, managing his own business and having involvement in national social enterprise programmes. In April 2014, his father walked into the living room one evening to admit to the family that he was not travelling away on company business the next day as he previously had said, he was actually heading to court in Wales following a trial leading to him being accused of fraud. He claimed he had cashed a cheque twice at a company he worked at in 2012 and that this was in an effort to save the struggling company.
What happened next was a shocking truth which none of the family expected to hear. That Friday evening, the familiy received a call from David's solicitor saying their father would not be coming home that night as he was in a van on the way to prison in Liverpool. He had been convicted of fraud and given a 2 year jail sentence.
It was only through a local newspaper that the family found out that David Bradford, 58, had stolen £50,000 from his employers to fund an out of control gambling addiction which they knew nothing about. He had run up 21 different credit card and pay day debts including other bank loans and left the family with a home which had been re-mortgaged without their knowledge; all to cover up his crippling addiction.
David himself comments: 'This is my truth. I am a gambler, maybe a compulsive gambler. I am a fraudster, maybe a compulsive fraudster. A love of money sent me into a delusional spiral of repaying debt and using more debt to repay debt. This sucked me into a dark hole which I cannot even begin to describe. I don't even think I have admitted this to myself.'
Over the past year his family have been campaigning for tighter regulations over online betting and gambling to try and bring about changes which make situations like this much more rare. Adam Bradford comments: 'The industry in my opinion is a reckless joke, paying lip service to their responsible gambling commitments. No compulsive gamblers will want to self exclude themselves and neither will they look up the miniscule website posted on companies' flashy adverts. The prominence of gambling in today's society is a real worry, with an endless stream of promotions for free bets and the illusion that you could will millions in the click of a finger. For people like my dad, there should have been better safeguards in place. I hope the government and the industry will listen to our story.'
Now, the family face losing their family home of over 30 years in Sheffield and have been left with crippling debt. This Friday, their campaign will launch nationally in London with celebrity support, with their story being told later this month as part of a new Channel 5 documentary.
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22-year-old Adam Bradford: Gambling industry is a 'reckless joke'
March 03, 2015 at 02:37 AM EST
