Jim Phillips: 108 Psychopaths and Me

What if one of your closest friends turned out to be a master of deception?

In 2005, Jim co-founded a marketing company with an old friend. The business flourished, major contracts arrived and their client list grew. But as his partner’s behaviour became increasingly erratic, Jim began to wonder how well he really knew the man with whom he had built the company.

The truth was stranger than anything he could have imagined. His friend had created an extraordinary network of false identities, impersonating bank officials, doctors, judges and even a Chinese government minister. Contracts and transactions worth millions were invented, serious illnesses were fabricated and Jim eventually found himself facing a judge at the Old Bailey.

108 Psychopaths and Me follows the fraud as it grows increasingly elaborate, but it also looks at the questions left behind. How can someone deceive the people closest to them for so long? Why do we overlook things that seem obvious afterwards? And how do you begin to trust your own judgement again when the person you trusted most has distorted your sense of reality?

Jim talks about how he uncovered the truth, the effect it had on his life and why he decided to tell the story. With a tale this extraordinary, there is plenty to ask. The evening includes questions from the audience, with copies available to buy and have signed.

Jim has spent thirty-five years working in advertising, television and sports marketing, which he describes as getting paid to travel around the world watching sport.

He has written for the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail, as well as working on scripts for television. 108 Psychopaths and Me is his first book.