Preying on elderly was career criminal’s family business

HENRY Vincent and his family made more than £1million fleecing the elderly and vulnerable in a series of scams.

The cowboy builders frog-marched victims to the bank after telling them their homes were about to fall down, using tricks such as displaying rotten pieces of wood they had brought with them and squirting water on walls to claim roofs leaked.

One 80-year-old woman was forced to sign over her £1 0,000 house. A man aged 80 paid his life savings for unnecessary work that was never done.

The gang even sent one victim a postcard from Ibiza, where they had funded a holiday with their scam. Although the families lived in council houses within a few roads of each other in St Mary Cray, Kent, they drove luxury cars including BMWs and Mercedes. When detectives searched their houses they found a pot containing £27, 00 in cash.

The scam – led by Vincent’s father Henry – also involved his uncles Clifford, David, John, Robert and Steven.

They were jailed for a total of almost 30 years in 2003, with Vincent sentenced to four and a half. Judge Simon Pratt said: ‘It is quite clear the family business was devoted to preying upon and fleecing elderly, vulnerable victims of as much as you could lay your hands on. Vast sums, thousands of pounds, were leeched from these elderly victims.’

In 2009, Vincent and his father charged a pensioner £72,000 to repair a single roof tile. The men tricked the 81-year-old man into paying for repairs worth just £ 0 by showing him maggots they claimed were from the roof.

Both men were handed six-year sentences but Vincent’s father, then 2, went on the run and was not caught until 2011.