Fraudulent workmen jailed after preying on pensioners

FRAUDULENT WORKMEN who conned a Filey pensioner have been jailed.

Riley Smith, 42, of Sunrise Meadow Travellers site, Needingworth Road, Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire, and William Gaskin, 42, of Rose View Drive Travellers site, Holbech, Lincolnshire, were jailed yesterday at Teesside Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiring to defraud their victims in relation to property repairs carried out at their homes.

The investigation started after concerned relatives reported work conducted at the home of their 80-year-old relative who lived alone in Filey.

After her admission to hospital and later when she was in residential care, they discovered cheques for £94,500 had been paid to the pair between January and October 2016 for work carried out to her drive, gardens and roof. An expert surveyor appointed by the multi-agency Operation Gauntlet team examined the work and concluded it was worth no more than £25,000. The victim died in July 2017. In a statement, her relatives said: “The family are relieved that these men have admitted their guilt. This is tinged with sadness as our aunt and sister passed away without knowing that justice has been done. The last two years have been stressful and upsetting knowing that our sick, elderly aunt was so cruelly conned.”

Further inquiries by the team identified two additional victims in the Lincolnshire area – a disabled couple in their 60s and elderly pair in their 70s.

Both Smith and Gaskin were jailed for three years and nine months.

They were also disqualified from being company directors for eight years and were made the subject of Criminal Behaviour Orders preventing them from cold calling at residential properties as well as other responsibilities.