Conman boasted of Army heroics to swindle OAP
Pensioner duped in gardening scam
A CONMAN boasted about his fake exploits in the British Army to swindle thousands of pounds from a pensioner in a bogus gardening scam.
Walter Brown walked away with more than £16,000 from John Keating after agreeing to carry out a large landscaping contract at his home.
Brown, 55, lied his way into Mr Keating’s favour by telling him about the many tours of duty he was involved in during the Falklands conflict and the war in Iraq.
Brown even told Mr Keating, 65, he had been forced to quit the military due to suffering from PTSD following an incident in Iraq. But after landing the contract and being handed the cash up front for materials, Brown regularly failed to turn up to carry out the work.
The fuming customer then decided to investigate Brown’s background and discovered the closest the con artist had got to the front line was as a chef in an Edinburgh Territorial Army corps.
The shocked victim called in the police, and Brown appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year to admit fraudulently receiving £16,450 from the pensioner.
Brown, from Musselburgh, East Lothian, was ordered to pay Mr Keating back at a rate of £1,000 per month by Sheriff Kenneth McGowan. He was eventually fined £3,000 at a court hearing last month.
Mr Keating, from Edinburgh, said: ‘After serving nearly 50 years in the Merchant Navy I think I am a fairly good judge of character but I was completely taken in by Brown.
‘He was so believable and his stories of the Falklands and Iraq were very convincing. He mentioned ships I knew had been at the conflicts so I just assumed he was telling the truth.
‘He told me he had just set up an account with a new supplier which would mean cheaper materials and I gladly handed over thousands of pounds to him as a down payment.
‘On one occasion I even turned up at his home to try to get him to get the job done, but he was always full of excuses.’
Mr Brown, who was swindled between December 14, 2016 and October 17, 2017, added: ‘He told me once his son had been in an accident and was at death’s door and I told him not to worry about the garden and to get to the hospital.
‘But I soon found out that, and other excuses, were a load of lies.
‘The biggest lie he told me was that he had to quit the Army as he suffered from PTSD after being in Iraq. But he told me he loved the military life so much that after leaving the Army he then joined the TA – I was very impressed.
‘But it turns out he has never even been in the regular army and the tales he told me were all lies.’
‘Biggest lie was that he suffered PTSD’