AN Evesham man who survived the Asian tsunami has been uncovered as a disgraced stockbroker.

Neil Thorneywork, aged 50, of Blackminster, near Evesham, was in the Maldives when disaster struck on Boxing Day.

His past was uncovered when a photograph of him in the Press was spotted by one of his victims, Janice Townsend, of Bewdley.

The mother-of-four described how her dealings with Mr Thorneywork began in the mid-1990s when he was a senior executive and principal shareholder with Hawthorn Securities in Birmingham.

By the late 1990s Mrs Townsend was alerted to a £100,000 black hole in her finances and Mr Thorneywork was under investigation by the financial watchdog, Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) following complaints from seven of his 250 clients.

He was struck off by the SFA in 1999 and banned from acting as a stockbroker.