Jail for con artist who helped friend defraud OAPs
A conwoman who helped a friend pose as a police officer and a social worker to defraud pensioners has been jailed. Emma Fuggles, of Roseholme, Maidstone, stole more than £700 from two elderly victims.
She helped Kathleen Perry, 57, who knocked on a man’s door in Maidstone pretending to be a police officer, saying she could arrest him for sexual assault if he didn’t hand over his bank card and PIN number. He handed over both to Perry, who got in a car and was driven by Fuggles to a nearby cash machine at a McColl’s and withdrew two lots of £250.
Perry returned the card to the elderly man and said she would be back the next day but the man called his family to say he thought he had been robbed. The fraud happened in September but just a month before Perry targeted another vulnerable 69-year-old, a woman who also lives alone in Maidstone.
This time, Perry knocked on her door and pretended to be from social services and told the woman her neighbour, who had recently died, had ordered bedding and it needed paying for. She told the victim the dead woman’s family would reimburse her if she handed over her bank card and PIN number. The woman did so and Perry and Fuggles went to a Sainsbury’s Local in Tonbridge Road and used an ATM to withdraw a total of £220. Both incidents were reported to police and officers viewing CCTV footage identified Perry. When police went to her home in Acorn Place, Maidstone, they found the clothes she was wearing on the CCTV images when she withdrew the money.
Perry was arrested and later charged with theft and fraud offences.
However, she refused to come to court from prison for her trial. As a result, District Judge Stephen Leake decided to continue with her trial in her absence on November 15.
During interviews, Perry mostly made no comment but did name Fuggles as her associate and blamed her for some of the offences and even suggested the elderly man had given her the cash in exchange for sexual favours.
Judge Leake found Perry guilty of all the charges against her: four theft offences and two of fraud by representation. A date is yet to be set for Perry’s sentencing.
Fuggles, who had already admitted her part in the fraud, has been jailed for two years and four months.