In 2020 Howard was charged with fraud by abuse of position after admitting to stealing more than \u00a3250,000, including from residents. <\/p>\n
He said one moment stood out as his wake-up call – a \u00a3147,000 win online.<\/p>\n
That money, which could have been returned, was instead gambled away in two days.<\/p>\n
“I remember sitting on the edge of the bed realising there were two options – suicide, or hand myself in to the police,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Suicide felt like the easy way out. But I went to the police station and disclosed everything.<\/p>\n
“Work found out. Friends and family found out. I became bankrupt. I lost my home. My relationship broke down.”<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to three years and four months in prison in 2024, but was released after serving 10 months in June 2025.<\/p>\n
“It was the worst and best thing that happened to me and it forced me into recovery,” he said.<\/p>\n
He now works at Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard, helping develop dedicated support for LGBT people affected by gambling harm.<\/p>\n
“When someone knows you’ve been there, the barriers come down instantly,” he said. “It’s true empathy.”<\/p>\n
“Gambling is indiscriminate,” he said. “It’s not going to pick you based on class, gender, race.<\/p>\n
“It can affect absolutely anyone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020 Howard was charged with fraud by abuse of position after admitting to stealing more than \u00a3250,000,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-297845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}