Ex-Pc loses appeal after swindling her own mum Former special tried to defraud mother of £50,000 pension
ASPECIAL Police Constable who was jailed after a heartless bid to defraud her own mother out of her £50,000 pension pot has lost a bid for freedom.
Sophie Middleton, 34, who is a former Staffordshire Police special, asked London’s Appeal Court to overturn her conviction, arguing her trial had been unfair.
Fraudster Middleton, of Rosemary Road, Tamworth, was said to have “a fractious relationship” with her teacher mother, and insisted it was just a plot by her mother to discredit her.
But judges shrift and appeal.
Middleton, 34, masqueraded as her mother, Anna Pointer, gave her dismissed short the forging her signature and pretending to be her on the phone in an attempt to rip off her retirement savings.
She managed to withdraw £18,000 from Mrs Pointer’s investment account in 2012, before she was caught.
Her plot was foiled only by chance. When her mother phoned up the investment company to ask a question about tax, she was told about the withdrawals, at which point she became “very upset” and her daughter’s scheme unravelled.
Middleton also tried to interfere with the police investigation into her crimes, by phoning the Staffordshire force, again posing as her mother, to cancel an appointment Mrs Pointer had made to tell police about the crime.
She was sentenced to 22 months at Stafford Crown Court in 2014 after being con- victed of three counts of fraud and one of perverting the course of justice.
But last week she claimed her trial had been unfair because the jury was played a recording of the police saying her defence was rubbish. Officers were heard telling her: “It’s rubbish, love, rubbish.”
Lord Justice Hickinbottom said she had made a “tactical decision” with her lawyers to allow the full recording to be played in court –and could not protest now.
“The truth is that the prosecution case was overwhelming,” the judge said. “There were recordings of several telephone calls which she made, masquerading as her mother, asking for money to be paid out.
“It was paid into her bank account. These convictions are, in our view, unarguably safe.”