Scumbag Sentenced For Double OAP Scam

A "mean and callous" serial rogue trader, who targeted elderly and vulnerable victims in a gardening and roofing scam, was jailed for fifteen months today.

Irish traveller Harry Smith, 22, of Bloxham Road, Milton, Oxfordshire conned £4,000 out of a Kent couple in their eighties who suffered with dementia and plotted to extract £800 from an 85 year-old Croydon pensioner.

"It is such a mean offence, it is callous," said the Recorder of Croydon Judge Warwick Mckinnon. "It is pre-meditated, planned and he has done it before."

Smith pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation between July 30 and August 2, 2010 in relation to James and Jean McBride - aged 86 and 83 - of Sevenoaks.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Charles Hammond, 85, of Park Road, Kenley and fraudulently failing to to disclose information to the victim, namely his cancellation rights on April 11, last year.

Prosecutor Miss Francesca Levett told the court the Kent couple were approached by the defendant to carry out gardening work at their home of thirty years and convinced them to write him a £4,000 cheque.

"They are vulnerable and elderly people and no work was ever carried out."

Police were only called after the couple's son, Chris, spotted the payment and it was traced to an account in the name of J Smith, which the defendant had opened.

Illness has since forced Jean into a care home and James is visited by a carer twice a day.

When arrested Smith denied the scam, but records of a police stop in Goathurst Common, Ide Hill placed him in the vicinity.

To save the victims giving evidence Smith was given a chance to refund the £4,000 in return for the charge being dropped, but he simply vanished and was circulated as wanted.

He later claimed a fundraising attempt at a Christian Travellers Convention failed to raise the necessary compensation.

Smith and an accomplice cold-called Mr. Hammond, with the defendant claiming he was the son of the roofer who worked on the victim's garage two years earlier and wanted to check its condition.

"Mr. Smith said he felt the roof would not survive the summer," said Miss Levett. "In reality the felt was in good condition and no work was required."

After initially trying to scam Mr. Hammond - who has since passed away - out of £2,250 for the £30 job an £800 fee was agreed.

Smith's accomplice - who was jailed for eight months - then used a broom to spread cheap bitumen over the roof.

When Smith demanded payment and the victim had no money in the house the accomplice drove the pensioner to the bank while the defendant remained alone in the property.

The money was not available and the two conmen agreed to return the next day, but Mr. Hammond was now suspicious and police were waiting when they arrived.

Officers seized their unregistered VW Passat van, which will now be confiscated.

In 2008 Smith received a suspended youth custody sentence in Somerset for a similar scam when he charged a lady £4,000 for covering her drive with £35 worth of tarmac.

Judge McKinnon told a tearful Smith, who will now miss the birth of his wife's twins: "These offences are similar and you have a previous conviction.

"They are mean and nasty because they prey on the age and vulnerability of elderly victims who do not have the same shield as young, healthy people.

"There was an obvious degree of planning, pre-meditation and deception by saying you were the son of the roofer. A deliberate lie."

Smith repaid the £4,000 the day before he was sentenced, but no order for costs was made against him despite Croydon Council alone spending over £20,000 to investigate and prosecute the case.

Over a dozen travellers were in court for the sentencing.