A former judge has warned people to beware email scams after he was cheated out of £100.

His Honour Julian Hall was a judge at Oxford Crown Court until he retired in 2010.

Judge Hall told the Oxford Mail how he was duped after receiving what appeared to be an email from a friend asking him to send Apple gift cards to a sick relative.

READ MORE: Rogue builder left homes unfinished

But his friend's email account had been hacked and it was a con - sometimes known as 'phishing'.

The former judge bought £100 worth of the gift cards from Tesco and then revealed the code for the cards to the online scammers.

He said: "I want to alert people to this - when I found out it was a scam I was very cross with myself.

Oxford Mail:

"After getting several emails I bought £100 of gift cards and then got instructions from the scammer to peel back and reveal the code on the cards.

"I was over-confident - they traded on speed and my inherent generosity."

Judge Hall said he sympathised with fellow pensioners who have lost thousands of pounds in phone scams or online scams.

And he advised people to check emails carefully and not reveal their bank details.

Judge Hall added in a letter to the Oxford Mail: "Your readers might have thought that someone who had spent 20 years at the Criminal Bar and a further 20 on the Bench trying such cases would be more than usually alert to the dangers of frauds, particularly online. Not so, I confess.

READ MORE: Harry Potter filming locations around Oxford

"I received an email from a good friend asking me to send Apple gift cards to a sick relative for a promised imminent birthday gift. To cut a long story short I did.

Oxford Mail: Watch out for online scams

"What I later learnt was that my friend’s email account had been hacked and all was false.

"When I re-read my friend's messages later it was clear that they were not in his usual style and factually improbable.

"I should have been on my guard but I was distracted by the apparent need for haste. That is part of the scammers’ technique.

My advice, born of an expensive mistake, is, Stop, Think, and Count at least to ten, before acting on any similar request."

READ MORE: New bespoke bookshop opens 

His Honour Julian Hall was a judge for 24 years until he retired aged 71.

He told his leaving party in 2010: "I’ve tried to be positive and constructive in passing my sentences.

“It has sometimes attracted the attention of the Attorney General and the Court of Appeal."

Help support trusted local news 

Sign up for a digital subscription now: oxfordmail.co.uk/subscribe 

As a digital subscriber you will get: 

  • Unlimited access to the Oxford Mail website 
  • Advert-light access 
  • Reader rewards 
  • Full access to our app 

About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.