Elementary error of con man who impersonated Holmes detective
A FRAUDSTER posed as a police officer and used the name of a fictional detective to commit crime, a court has heard.
Aaron Cowan went to mobile phone shops and bookmakers in Kent purporting to investigate fake crimes. But it was his decision to use the name Inspector Lestrade that proved to be his downfall as he was arrested after a victim recognised the name from the Sherlock Holmes novels.
Cowan, 24, from Broadstairs, Kent, was subsequently charged with fraud and impersonating a police officer, having obtained cash and goods from a number of businesses.
Wearing a false police lanyard and identity badge, he targeted a mobile phone shop in Margate and seized an iphone before going to another shop and selling it for £340.
The next day, he visited a travel agency in Ramsgate, claiming to be investigating the supply of fake banknotes, but left empty-handed. He attempted the same scam at a betting shop in Margate and this time left with £4,840 worth of notes he claimed had been forged.
He returned later to collect the hard drive from the shop’s CCTV system, which he said would help his inquiries.
Cowan left emptyhanded following a similar incident at an amusement arcade in Margate, but it was when he tried to steal another phone, in Canterbury, that he was eventually caught. The manager became suspicious of the name he used and reported Cowan to Kent Police.
Officers searched his home and seized £2,500, an ID badge in the name of DI Greg Lestrade and a number of evidence bags.
When arrested, he claimed a gang made him pose as Inspector Lestrade to defraud companies. At Canterbury Crown Court, Judge James O’mahony declared him the most “unconvincing witness I have ever heard” and jailed him for five years after he admitted fraud and impersonating police. The fictional Insp Lestrade appears in several Sherlock Holmes novels. He is described in A Study In Scarlet as “a little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow”.