Guilty, churchgoing shop boss who conned customers out of £19k
A CHURCHGOING businessman who became ‘a pathological liar’ and conned his customers to fund a luxury lifestyle was facing jail yesterday.
Wood shop boss Vincent McFadden traded for more than 26 years, selling doors, floors and cut timber, building up an ‘exemplary’ reputation and loyal customer base. But when trade dwindled, he began demanding money upfront for goods he never ordered.
Targeting ‘mainly elderly, vulnerable customers’, McFadden, 62, defrauded 20 clients of more than £19,000 to pay the mortgage on his £600,000 home and to satisfy his wife’s penchant for ‘fancy’ cars.
One 83-year-old former pensions consultant, since diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, was driven to the bank by McFadden’s staff to get money after he tried to place a £2,280 order for 13 doors and McFadden refused to let him pay by card.
When customers complained their doors had not arrived, he responded with ‘multiple excuses’, a jury at Stirling Sheriff Court was told.
As customers became desperate, people seeking refunds formed queues outside McFadden Timber, in Grahamston, Falkirk. One customer, owed £400 for missing doors, threatened to turn up with a placard.
McFadden lied to other customers that he had cancer, had suffered a heart attack, or a joiner had accidentally driven to Wick with a cargo of doors, all in order to buy time, and issued refund cheques he expected would bounce.
Local GP Dr Paul Lim’s claims that McFadden assaulted and racially abused him when he tried to recover £250 for a door he had ordered were found not proven. When one customer eventually went to the police, McFadden told them: ‘I was robbing Peter to pay Paul.’
But in court, the father of two from Camelon, Falkirk, continued to deny wrongdoing, saying he was ‘a Christian’ and would never cheat anybody.
He was found guilty after an eight-day trial during which prosecutor Kyrsten Buist branded him ‘a pathological liar’ who ‘committed fraud all day long, to fund an expensive, lavish lifestyle’.
Sheriff William Gilchrist granted McFadden bail pending sentencing on June 27.