Bogus Gas Leak Fraudster Jailed For Identity Scam

A mail fraudster’s £9,600 bank swindle was exposed by a vigilant Port Talbot postman – commended by a Crown Court judge - when jailing the identity thief for six months.

Italian conman Cosimo Melis, 35, of Havelock Road, Bruce Grove, Tottenham, was the front man for a mail diversion scam aimed at seizing personal banking details and fleecing victims via London branches.

Post Office sorting offices in Port Talbot and Windsor Road, Neath, Wales (pictured) were told by a bogus female caller with a foreign accent that a dangerous gas leak at the addresses meant mail could not be delivered as normal.

Jobless barman Melis then turned up with a bogus driving licence and successfully collected an unsuspecting victim’s mail, but was caught during a second bid when suspicious staff tipped-off police.

“Neath Post Office workers expecting a broad Welsh accent are met by Melis with a broad Italian accent,” said Judge Peter Clarke QC at London’s Blackfriars Crown Court.

Melis pleaded guilty to three charges of dishonestly making false representations to make a gain at banks in Marylebone; Oxford Street and Baker Street on April 11.

He also admitted possessing a false identity document, with intent to use it to establish personal information, and using the document in connection with fraud at the Neath Office on April 13.

Prosecutor Mrs Jag Shah told the court Port Talbot received a phone call on April 7, purportedly from the wife of local man Gareth Hokin, claiming the family would personally collect their mail.

“She said that due to a carbon monoxide leak at the home they would make the collection at the sorting office.”

Meanwhile Barclays Bank received a request for a new debit card and pin number from a fraudster posing as Mr. Hokin and these were mailed out.

“The defendant or someone else purporting to be Mr Hokin’s son attended with a driving licence and the staff took it as genuine and handed out the mail,” explained Mrs Shah.

Those cards were used to successfully withdraw £4,800 cash on two occasions in London’s West End. A similar attempt in the same amount failed.

When the Hokin’s regular postman – Ian Shepherd - heard about the supposed gas leak he immediately became suspicious and tipped-off the victim who quickly found the debits to his account.

“I’d like him to be commended. It obviously came to his attention because he is the regular postman,” said Judge Clarke. “It shows exemplary attention to his customers that he should speak to them personally.”

Two days later Melis was back in Wales trying the collect post in Neath after a foreign woman claiming to be the wife of Leighton Thomas from Neath Valley called up the sorting office.

“She said there was a problem with carbon monoxide in the area and that the family’s post would be collected,” explained Mrs Shah.

Melis turned up with a driving licence in Mr. Thomas’s name, but with his own photograph, but was refused mail by staff and the police called.

“Mr. Thomas later told police he did not know anything about a gas leak or a change to his mail arrangements,” added the prosecutor.

“It’s obviously a less cosmopolitan population in Port Talbot than in Marylebone,” commented Judge Clarke, referring to the postman’s swift action in spotting something was odd.

“Maybe people just care about each other more in Port Talbot,” said Melis’ lawyer Mr. Sean Smith.

“He did not have funds and fell prey to temptation,” added the lawyer, claiming his client lived in a squat and was on 10% commission from the scam’s organisers.

“You were working for sophisticated people and were defrauding banks effectively and causing considerable distress to people in Wales who lost that money,” Judge Clarke told Melis, who spent a week in Swansea Prison after being remanded in custody by Neath Magistrates’ Court on August 4.

No order was made regarding compensation or confiscation.

Xmas Night Killing: No Room Inn Here

A confused stranger had his throat slashed on a freezing cold Christmas night and was left in a pool of blood on his drunken attacker's doorstep, a court heard today.

Inderjit Singh, 36,(pictured) was lost and searching for a concerned friend's flat when he knocked on the wrong door in the early hours of Christmas Day, last year.

"Inderjit Singh was murdered in very brutal circumstances. He had his throat slit," prosecutor Miss Rosa Dean told the Croydon Crown Court jury.

Sheet metal worker David Folley, 34, of 28 Calshot Walk, Bedford has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr. Singh on December 25, last year and attempting to murder Norman Grant on May 29 while on remand at Wood Hill Prison, Milton Keynes.

The court heard Mr. Singh - known as 'Raj' - had been given the address of 82 Calshot Walk by a friend concerned about him being alone on Christmas night.

"Neighbours of Mr. Folley heard a man knocking and clearly frustrated that he could not get in," explained Miss Dean.

After sleeping on the defendant's doorstep to shelter from heavy snowfall Mr. Singh attended a local carol service at a Methodist church then returned to the flat.

"This time his mistake proved fatal," said the prosecutor.

"In that time after Mr. Folley had come back from the pub and found a drunk and disorientated Mr. Singh outside his flat he went inside, got a kitchen knife, went outside and killed Mr. Singh.

"He cleaned the knife and put it in a Tesco's carrier bag and put it in the bin area."

Folley told police he found Mr. Singh lying in a pool of blood when he arrived home and had nothing to do with the attack.

"He was not to know there were tiny spots of blood on his jeans, airborne blood, that puts Mr. Folley there at the time of the killing of Mr. Singh."

The isolated victim had spent Christmas Eve riding the buses of Bedford after finding a pass and was given the key to a flat in Calshot Walk by a kind friend.

The emergency services were only alerted when Folley rang 118 118 to find out the local police station number.

"In that call he said he needed an ambulance to come. There was a man outside his flat in a pool of blood and he did not know if he was dead or alive," explained Miss Dean.

Folley later changed his story, claiming he went inside to think about it after discovering the injured Mr. Singh.

After being charged with murder and remanded in custody the defendant "launched an attack on a fellow inmate" added Miss Dean.

He was pulled off the victim by prison officers, but minutes later shouted: "I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to kill someone."

Trial continues...............

Trio Of Burglars Caught Raiding Hospital Block

A teenage burglar, who equipped himself with two hammers, wire cutters and a length of plastic for slipping locks, targeted a landmark accommodation block for Royal Free Hospital staff with two younger accomplices in the middle of the night.

The trio were found at 3am wandering around a ground-floor office in Coppetts Wood House, Lawn Road, Hampstead when a nurse heard them breaking-in and called the police.

Music student David Newby, 18, of 88 Leverton Street, Kentish Town pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court to burgling the building (pictured) on May 18 and was sentenced to seventy hours community service.

Prosecutor Mrs Jag Shah told the court Newby and two youths, aged 16 and 15, who were separately dealt with were seen forcing open a ground-floor window by a resident looking down from above.

She heard voices at 3:00am saying: “See if you can get in there.”

“She shouted at them to go, but this did not deter them,” added Mrs Shah.

After the trio were caught it was also discovered the building’s main communal door lock had been broken with a sharp instrument.

“This young man is firmly on the slippery slope to a life of crime and needs to be stopped in his tracks,” announced Judge David Martineau, after hearing Newby has a warning for attempted robbery and theft from a vehicle.

“You could have got very easily from the office into the residential area,” the judge told the defendant.

“You burgled in a group in the middle of the night armed with two hammers, wire cutters and the length of plastic. It was clearly pre-planned and you were the oldest, you were the ringleader.”

Newby was also placed under supervision for twelve months and ordered to obey a strict nightime curfew for three months.

The ten-storey 141-unit building which comprises of studios and 1 and 2-bedroom flats was opened on October 20, 2008 by HRH The Duke of York, Patron of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS trust.

Elusive Graffiti Artist Admits Spree

A notorious graffiti ‘tagger’ who caused £100,000 worth of damage to trains and a sports ground in South-East London admitted his spree.

Ishak Hussain, 19, of Steiner Street, Accrington, Lancashire covered train carriages in his ‘ENDA’ tag after sneaking into a train depot in Grove Park.

He pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court to seventeen charges of causing criminal damage to South Eastern trains on various dates between January 11 and October 12, last year.

He also pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage to walls and benches at Beckenham Hill Railway Station on New Year’s Eve, last year and a railway bridge near the station between March 1 2010 and March 30, this year.

Hussain also admitted causing criminal damage to a Powerleague club in Canadian Avenue, Catford on February 15, last year.

He has already pleaded guilty to a separate arson charge and will be sentenced for all offences at Woolwich Crown Court on a date to be fixed.

Badcop Fleeces Child Crime Victims Charity

A disgraced female detective has admitted defrauding a police children's charity, which raised funds for crime victims, out of at least £26,000.

Ex-Detective Sergeant Louise Ord, 42, who was sacked by City of London Police in February, last year controlled the force's charity Child Victims of Crime.

Ord, of Harwich Road, Colchester, Essex, who worked with sexual abuse victims, was a nominated signature on cheque's paid on the charity's behalf and sat on it's committee.

She pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to one count of fraud in that between January 16, 2007 and April 6, 2009, dishonestly, with intent to gain, or expose others to the risk of loss abused her position of trust as a police officer and committee member by taking monies.

Alcoholic Ord, who has an eleven year-old daughter with her ex-husband - a Royal Protection Police Officer - has made "serious attempts at suicide" the court was told.

Prosecutor Miss Claire Howell told the court (pictured): "The defence has always maintained she intended to repay the money, but the prosecution say she did not have anything like the money she had taken."

The prosecution confirmed Ord paid £26,000 into her bank account, but the charity's total losses were £46,500.

"She was regularly taking money out an deposited a lesser figure in her account," explained Miss Howell. "She was clearly keeping some of that cash for herself."

Ord organised a charity dinner and did pay for a band and speaker in a fund-raising function sponsored by major banks and companies.

"The defendant has insisted throughout her disciplinary hearing and interviews that she had made repayments to the charity during the time the offences were committed," said Miss Howell.

"She offered to show the police through her bank statements, but after a suicide attempt her solicitor gave her advice and from then on she answered all questions: 'No comment.'

"There is no evidence on the bank accounts, no evidence whatsoever that she paid money back to the charity before or after her arrest."

Judge Nicholas Lorraine-Smith bailed Ord until November 4 when the probation service asked for him to order a psychiatric report if he considered imprisonment was the only option.

"I have seen who the losers are and the amounts and based on that the care of the daughter has become extremely important in my mind," he announced.

"This is a very serious case and I am considering not just a prison sentence, but an appreciable prison sentence and this will effect not just this lady, but her child.

"I understand she is an alcoholic and extremely depressed at the moment and I have spoken bluntly so Mrs Ord is not under and misunderstanding.

"The defence are asking for a suspended sentence, but I think that is going to be extremely unlikely."

The charity was founded in 1994 to support children whose lives had been affected by crime following the 1993 IRA bombing of Warrington, which killed 12 year-old Tim Parry.

Patrons of the charity include Crimewatch presenter Fiona Bruce and former England rugby star Dean Richards - himself a police officer.

Money raised is used to pay for care and equipment required by children who fall victim to crime, and to send them on holidays.

Teen Locked-Up For Hurling Beer Bottle At Drinker's Head

A boozy teenage thug who threw a beer bottle at a fellow-drinker outside a pub - causing a gash to the victim's forehead - was caged for twelve months yesterday.

Anthony Corps, 19, admitted assaulting the man, causing him actual bodily harm, outside Wibbas Down Inn - a JD Wetherspoon pub - in Gladstone Road, Wimbledon (pictured).

Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court heard two groups were hanging around outside the pub when a man from the victim's group asked one of the defendant's friends for a rizla paper.

Members of the defendant's group then began taunting one of the other individuals.

Tempers flared and overly-aggressive Corps had to be led away from the confrontation by one of his pals.

CCTV footage, which was played in court, showed the defendant shrugging off his friend and returning to the row.

He was holding a beer bottle, which he threw at the victim, causing a Y-shaped gash to the man's forehead, which required three stitches.

Internet Perv At It Again

An online pervert, who breached a strict court order when he made sexual suggestions to underage teen girls during Internet chats, has dodged prison with a suspended sentence.

Mark Slater, 24, of Leatherhead Road, Chessington asked one fifteen year-old to expose herself via a web cam and whether she would perform a sex act on him before similarly moving onto a fourteen year-old.

He was made subject to a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) on July 1, last year after being convicted on eight counts of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Slater pleaded guilty at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court (pictured) to breaching the order, which prohibited him from engaging in online communication with girls aged under eighteen.

The court heard his supervising police officer made a spot-check at the family home on February 24 and Slater’s laptop was seized after he admitted receiving and deleting images sent by a young girl.

A forensic examination of the computer revealed Slater had looked up Facebook profiles of young girls and asked one: “show me your boobs” and “tell some of your nice-looking friends to add me.”

While posing as a young boy Slater also asked the fifteen year-old: “Would you suck me?” to which she replied: “Yes.”

He attempted a similar tactic with a fourteen year-old girl, but this time admitted how old he was and was told: “Why don’t you find someone your own age?”

Further teen chat sites were found on the laptop, plus a picture of a young girl naked from the waist up.

When quizzed at Kingston police station on April 6 Slater admitted trawling the internet in the search of topless shots of young girls for his own sexual gratification.

There were also cartoon images of children engaged in “sexual acts” on the laptop.

Judge Peter Birts QC sentenced Slater to fifty-one weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a two-year supervision requirement that he attends the community sex offender group treatment programme.

“The order is to protect young girls from predatory people like you,” the judge told the defendant. “It is a destructive, soulless, lonely activity.

“You are a perfectly decent person in every other way and you have not tried to put these fantasies into action.

“This addiction to pornography will destroy you if you do not get out of it. You have to kick the habit or you are on a downward slope.”

Slater, who works at homewares store Wilkinson’s, was also ordered to pay £340 costs.

Royal Mail Sorter Helped Loot Xmas Gifts

A casual Royal Mail sorter - employed to clear the Christmas rush - used his car boot to hoard nearly £2,000 worth of expensive gifts stolen at an East London depot.

Computing student Numan Hussain, 20, currently a second-year BA under-graduate at East London University, stored the items for a thief - also employed at the depot.

He pleaded guilty at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court (pictured) to dishonestly handling three stolen mobile phones, an I-phone, Blackberry and Kindle and was ordered to perform 120 hours community service and pay £1,000 costs.

The court heard Hussain was "deeply ashamed and embarrassed" at being the first member of his family to be convicted of a criminal offence.

He met the thief while working at the depot and investigators moved in when the second man placed the items in his car boot.

Hussain is now "depressed" and "full of remourse and regret" the court was told and is reeling from losing an important computer internship as a result of the conviction.

"The items were products of a breach of trust," Recorder Millar QC told the defendant. "After the thefts you were providing storage space in the boot of your car."

Neighbour-From-Hell Back Home

A notorious neighbour-from-hell, who breached a court-imposed ASBO by making death threats to long-suffering neighbours while wielding a fearsome gardening tool, has been jailed for four-and-a-half months.

However, 44 year-old jobless gardener Clive Farquharson was immediately released to return to Grierson House, Aldrington Estate, Tooting Bec (pictured) due to time served on remand.

He pleaded guilty at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court to breaching the Anti-Social Behaviour Order on May 2 by subjecting his neighbours to harassment, alarm and distress.

The five-year ASBO was imposed at South Western Magistrates' Court on August 11 last year following a catalogue of complaints about his disruptive, noisy and aggressive behaviour.

Neighbours reported Farquharson banging on their front doors at all hours demanding food or money, vandalising their property and making threats.

Prosecutor Abigail Husbands told the court Farquharson, who has been convicted of 34 previous offences, was arrested yet again for angrily roaming the block of flats with a four foot long bladed gardening tool.

One neighbour heard the defendant shouting: "I'm going to chop your heads off" and called police, telling officers he was at the end of his tether and wanted an injunction against Farquharson.

"Another neighbour heard four or five loud bangs to the window of her flat and could hear the defendant shouting at the top of his voice," explained Mrs Husbands.

"A woman who also phoned the police went outside because her daughter was there and saw the defendant walking up the stairs waving a gardening tool shouting: 'Do you want some?'

"They were concerned he may try to threaten them directly with it."

Eventually a local shopkeeper who is on better terms with Farquharson persuaded him to hand over the tool and he was arrested.

The defendant has been in custody since his arrest.

"There is no point ignoring what the future is. The residents have to be left in peace. What am I supposed to do?" asked Judge Peter Birts QC.

"I have been told you were agitated and there is something about your personality that makes you behave like this and upsets the peace of others," the judge told Farquharson.

"I have heard you are having some help with your drinking through your local church and I am trusting you to continue with that help and not disturb your neighbours.

"If you do you will be back here for another breach and the consequences will be very serious."

Benefit Cheat Gardener Grassed-Up By Neighbour

A benefit cheat, whose £46,000 disability scam was exposed by damning photographs of him gardening and carrying heavy loads, has dodged prison because he now claims to be bed-bound.

Ex-bus driver David Port, 52, (pictured) claimed he could only walk a few steps without support and paid a relative to lift him upstairs to bed every night.

He was given a free motobility vehicle; sheltered accommodation; a carer's allowance and free designated parking spot after successfully exaggerating his condition to doctors.

Among the array of ailments he claimed to suffer were chest pain, shortness of breath, carpal tunnel syndrome, fits, vascular disease and brittle bone disease.

Ironically Port, of Kuala Gardens, Norbury, South London, suffered a genuine stroke awaiting sentence - although a judge indicated he is still exaggerating his symptoms.

Port failed to appear at Croydon Crown Court where he pleaded guilty over two years ago to dishonestly making false statements to obtain Disability Living Allowance (DLA) between February 15 1999 and July 20 2005.

Further benefit fraud charges amounting to approximately £100,000 will lie on the file because any trial would involve Port being brought before a jury in his bed and Judge Stephen Waller ruled this was not in the public interest.

Benefit fraud charges amounting to around £3,000 against the defendant's wife, Susan Port, 56, will also lie on the file.

Prosecutor Miss Wendy Hewitt told the court: "A neighbour became suspicious when the local authority painted a dedicated parking bay outside the defendant's sheltered accommodation.

"The neighbour took a series of photographs in 2006 that showed Mr. Port outside erecting a wooden structure, hanging a gate and sawing and hammering.

"In both the care and mobility sections of his claim Mr. Port was granted benefits at the very, very highest level, reserved for those who cannot walk or care for themselves."

While claiming he could not walk Port was cautioned by police in 2005 for kicking a motorist's car during a road-rage incident.

"That is further evidence that this is not a man who was disabled at all, but manipulated the system to obtain public funds," added Miss Hewitt.

Port's lawyer Mr. Nick Corsellis told the court: "This is a case right-minded people will find scandalous.

"For a man who wished to be disabled the fact is he now is after suffering a stroke and is now bed-bound and cared for by his wife and other carers."

Judge Waller, who agreed to scrap the trial on further benefit fraud charges, announced: "He would have recquired a stretcher or a bed in court. A trial may have been possible with his co-operation, but that was not forthcoming.

"The defendant was far from co-operative in seeing a prosecution medical expert and the court considered issuing a warrant for his arrest or having the trial in his absence.

"Although it is possible he exaggerates his symptoms he is now a man who is genuinely ill and spends his days in bed at home.

"He has done little to try and make himself better since suffering the stroke and if he exercised as the doctors have advised his condition would not be as bad."

Port was sentenced to ten months imprisonment, suspended for two years, and ordered to obey a nightime curfew and residency requirement for six months.

No compensation was ordered and Port continues to receive benefits.

Bent Solicitor Jailed For Audacious Mortgage Fraud

A disgraced solicitor who conspired to arrange 360 bogus marriages in a notorious immigration scam has also been convicted of falsely inflating his salary threefold and forging two mortgage application forms in a bid to borrow £323,000.

Nigerian-born Michael Adelasoye, 51, of Chapel Mews, Marianne Park, Old London Road, Hastings, will now serve additional time behind bars for lying to two different building societies and forging his manager's signature.

He was convicted at Croydon Crown Court that on or about September 13, 2007 he dishonestly falsely represented to the Principality Building Society an exaggerated salary of £78,000 and wrote his own reference from his line manager.

He was also convicted that on or about October 10, 2007 he dishonestly falsely represented to the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society an exaggerated salary in the same figure and wrote his own reference from his line manager.

The church pastor, who also preached at the Ark of Hope Christian Centre, Marine Court was employed by a Cooper, Carter, Claremont of Hailsham, East Sussex.

"This was an incident that was fraudulent from the outset and involved multiple frauds," Recorder Neil Saunders told Adelasoye. "You are not a person of good character and were sentenced for fraud last year at Lewes Crown Court to four years.

"What I do find aggravating is this was a planned event and you were in a position of trust as a solicitor," added the Recorder, sentencing Adelasoye to three-and-a-half years imprisonment.

"In the course of your evidence I find aggravating the the fact you sought to blame others, not only your wife with whom there is animosity, but Home and Search brokers."

Prosecutor Mr. Stephen Requena told the court Adelasoye - who was earning £25,000 a year - forged the signature of the firm's practice manager, Karen Goldsmith, to confirm he was earning a £78,000 salary in his Principality application.

"The crown say that was clearly dishonest and was something done to gain a mortgage for himself or cause loss to the building society.

"Those events did not bear fruit and less than a month later Mr. Adelasoye was at it again, making false representations that his salary was seventy-eight thousand pounds to Cheltenham and Gloucester.

"This time it worked and was approved on the basis of that salary figure he gave that had been certified by his manager."

The fraud was uncovered, the court heard, when Principality contacted Mrs Goldsmith for verbal confirmation and she revealed she had never completed a reference.

Significantly, Adelasoye had earlier tried to persuade his boss to complete a mortgage reference and include bonuses yet to be earned in a bid to inflate his salary, but this was refused.

Mr.Requena told the jury the defendant's marriage to wife Stella was breaking down and he needed to re-mortgage the matrimonial home to pay her of and allow him to remain.

"His twenty-five thousand a year salary was never going to give him a big enough mortgage to stay there. That is why he inflated his salary figure so he could pay-off his wife and continue living there."

The mortgage's monthly £1900 payments were funded by Adelasoye's lucrative immigration scam until that was uncovered.

"There was overwhelming evidence the documents must have been sent from the company you worked at," added Recorder Saunders. "You undoubtedly lied to the jury when you said there was no dishonesty in what you were doing."

The sentence will start immediately, pushing back Adelasoye's release date from April, next year until May 2013.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment on September 6, last year at Lewes Crown Court for conspiring to facilitate the commission of breaches of immigration law in relation to 360 sham marriages between July 1, 2005 and September 1, 2009.

He introduced mainly African immigrants to Eastern European EU citizens and marriages took place at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Leonards.

Rev. Alex Brown, 62, and Vladymyr Buchak, 34, were also sentenced to four years.