EX-ARMY COP CONS WIDOW OF SAVINGS

Man facing jail after stealing £20k

A 78- year- old army widow was conned out of her life savings in West Lothian by an ex- Royal Military policeman after she lost her husband to cancer.

The woman had embarked on a new relationship with David Potts after chatting to him on a social media group for army veterans. Potts (68) earned her trust by telling her he had served alongside her late husband in the regiment known as the Redcaps, a court heard.

After an online romance lasting two years, the woman sold her house in Argyll and Potts moved from Germany to Scotland to set up home with her in a rented house in Whitburn.

The conman then took advantage of the woman’s trust to gain control of her finances and steal her money.

He now faces jail after being convicted of defrauding the trusting grandmother out of £20,000.

Livingston Sheriff Court heard that the woman trusted Potts so much that she even granted him power of attorney over her affairs.

He even had access to the £ 500 a month pension her husband had set up for her before he died.

The woman only found out about Potts’ deceit when her landlady arrived at her home with an eviction notice because, unknown to her,

Potts hadn’t been paying the rent. Sheriff Peter Hammond found Potts, who now lives near Cambridge, guilty of the “cynical and protracted fraud” after a five-day trial at Livingston Sheriff Court.

He said Potts had manoeuvred himself into a position of trust, so much so, the woman did not challenge where her money had gone.

He said: “An example of the further extensive control the accused gained over her affairs was when he gained power of attorney over her to take full control of her affairs when there was no need for that.

“That was at a time when – unknown to the complainer – her funds were almost exhausted.

“I accept the complainer’s evidence that she did not intend for the accused to have unlimited access to her finances for his own purposes, that she was genuinely shocked and distressed when she discovered she had no money left and that the accused had not even paid the rent for a period.”

He said Potts had tried to portray his victim as a ‘silly spendthrift’ acting against his advice, and he also referred to her as a ‘domineering woman’.

But the sheriff said: “Neither of these conclusions could be in any way supported by listening to the complainer’s evidence and the evidence of those who knew her.”

He called for background reports and told Potts to return to court for sentence next month.

The woman said she was jubilant about the guilty verdict. She said: “I was devastated when I found out all my savings had gone. I didn’t know what to do. It’s disgusting how he treated me. I was conned and feel both stupid and distraught. Now he can rot in hell.”

She said she wanted to highlight to other women how easily she had been conned out of her savings by a man she trusted.

She said: “It’s so easy to trust people. He was a policeman. When you trust somebody you don’t sit there answering questions every day, you just get on with life.”

It’s disgusting how he treated me… now he can rot in hell