Merciless ly conning OAPs, stealing war medals, £1m cow boy building scam... crime clan exposed
AS a family philosophy goes, it is sensationally callous.
‘An OAP a day keeps ur bank balance at bay,’ a member of the Vincent clan proclaims proudly on social media, adding: ‘The old b******s deserve everything they get.’
With relatives notorious for targeting pensioners and fleecing them of their savings, it was armed burglar Henry Vincent who died after struggling with 78-year-old Richard Osborn-Brooks during a break-in this week.
And yesterday yet more shocking incidents emerged from the past of the 37-year-old and his family.
In one, Vincent was accused of posing as a policeman to con an 84-year-old woman out of £7,300. The frail alleged victim was said to have been told she had paid workmen in fake cash, and if she did not let Vincent and an accomplice in, they would ‘turn her house over’.
The two men turned up at June Stratton’s home in Kent one day in October 2013, and had what she thought to be identification cards and a warrant, Maidstone Crown Court heard.
Vincent was not in the dock as he was unfit to stand trial. His co-accused, Mark Wood, 52, denied burglary and walked free from court after the trial collapsed partway through.
But for another insight into the Vincent family’s attitude to the elderly, one need only look back to a case in 2007, when Vincent’s cousin William – then 27 – pleaded guilty to two distraction burglaries and was jailed for four years.
His brother Amos, then 24, was jailed three years after admitting two counts of the same crime.
Their victims included former airman Ronald Butler, then 82, who found his ‘invaluable’ collection of six war medals were missing after the pair visited his home in Catford, South-east London, posing as water board officials. They told another of their victims, a woman aged 90, that they were from the gas board.
Sentencing the brothers at London’s Blackfriars Crown Court, Judge Henry Blacksell QC said: ‘This is a particularly pernicious and nasty type of offending and the way you picked on them was pretty cynical. You preyed on them for what you could get. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.’
However the Vincent clan was anything but ashamed by the latest addition to their long and appalling collective criminal record.
After a concerned Neighbourhood Watch group publicised the thefts carried out by William and Amos on Facebook, another member of the family posted a foulmouthed response.
A Bill Vincent wrote: ‘The old b******s deserve everything they get. So stupid handing over thousands upon thousands... An OAP a day will keep ur bank balance a (sic) bay. Got to love the old c***s.’ In what reads like a warped busi-
‘Preyed on them for what you could get’
ness plan for the family’s nefarious activities, he went on: ‘Old c***s ain’t safe. Take every penny they got get old b******s to remorgage, take the money and let erm get chucked owt nxt one (sic).’ The posts were later deleted.
Many members of the Vincent family live in the St Mary Cray area of the London borough of Bromley, near the more affluent Orpington. While it might seem an inviting place at first glance, Star Lane which runs through it is notorious for its lawlessness. One worker involved in cleaning up the rubbish-strewn streets remembers once seeing, alongside the usual discarded sofas, a ‘huge hole which had been dug 6ft wide and 20ft deep with a car pushed into it.’
Henry Vincent was first convicted in 2003 for helping fleece elderly householders out of more than a million pounds. He and his family of cowboy builders frogmarched their vulnerable victims to the bank after telling them their houses were about to fall down.
They used tricks such as showing rotten pieces of wood they had brought with them and squirting water on to interior walls to claim roofs were leaking in order to claim cash for fake repairs.
One 80-year- old woman was forced to sign over her £150,000 house. Another man, aged 80, paid out his life savings for work on his chimney, which was unnecessary and was never even done.
The victims, aged between 59 and 89, were often too ashamed at being conned to tell their families what had happened. Meanwhile the Vincents and their families drove expensive cars including BMWs, Mercedes and Mitsubishi Shogun 4x4 – despite living in council houses. When detectives searched their houses they found a pot containing £27,500 in cash.
The scam was led by Vincent’s father Henry Charles along with five of his brothers – including Robert and Steven – and his son Henry, then 23.
Sentencing the seven at Croydon Crown Court in October 2003, Judge Simon Pratt said: ‘This is by a long way the worst case of bogus cowboy builders that I have ever come across. It is quite clear the family business was devoted to preying upon and fleecing elderly, vulnerable victims.’
Vincent was jailed for four-and-ahalf years for obtaining property by deception and the gang received a total of 30 years.
After he was released early halfway through his sentence, he carried out two burglaries in 2008, for which he received two six-month suspended sentences.
In June 2009, Vincent and his father were convicted of fraud after they charged a pensioner £72,000 to repair a single tile on their roof. Both men were handed six-year sentences.
In 2013 Vincent was named as one of Kent Police’s ‘most wanted’ criminals after he was suspected of carrying out another burglary in Gravesend. Kent Police appealed again for him in January this year after he was suspected of being involved in a distraction burglary from a man in his 70s.
‘An OAP a day keeps ur bank balance at bay’ — family gang’s vile motto FAMILY MEMBER BILL VINCENT ON FACEBOOK