Conman has jail sentence doubled

Bernard Collins, 51, of Harrogate, was jailed for 21 months in July after pleading guilty at Teesside Crown Court to conspiracy to defraud. Solicitor General Oliver Heald referred the case to the Court of Appeal in London on the basis that the sentence was unduly lenient.

Yesterday, Lord Justice Pitchford, Mr Justice Saunders and Mr Justice Spencer said that the appropriate sentence to reflect the serious and persistent nature of the frauds was three and a half years.

His two victims were a 78-year-old woman, who suffered from dementia, from Leeds and a 70-year-old man from the Harrogate area.

The judges heard that Collins, who ran a building and gardening business, called on the woman in Leeds, in December 2011, and took her to a post office and two separate banks to withdraw cash.

When a manager became suspicious, the woman was abandoned and found very distressed and confused.

In March 2012, Collins returned to her home and persuaded her to write a cheque to his daughter which was stopped before it could be cleared.

Earlier that year, he called on the man at his house in Harrogate, pressured him to have work done and took him to a bank to withdraw cash.

The judge said that Collins took advantage of the woman’s confused state and then kept her under his control, while the man was persistently badgered to pay for work at an exorbitant price and subjected to an element of intimidation.

Experts could not identify any work carried out at the woman’s home other than very minor repairs to a fence and it was estimated it would cost nearly £1,000 to put the incompetent work right at the man’s property.

The judges added that the 10 months detention in a young offender institution imposed on Collins’s 20-year-old son Barney for the same offence should have been 15 months, but they declined to interfere in his case as he was released yesterday because of good progress.

The case was heard yesterday following a referral of the case by North Yorkshire County Council’s Trading Service to the Attorney General’s office.

Speaking later, Mr Heald said that it was another example of conmen tricking elderly victims into giving them money for needless maintenance work: “Older people should not be preyed upon in their own homes.

“This case was another example of a con man tricking elderly victims into giving them money for needless maintenance work on their properties. In one case it would have cost nearly a thousand pounds to put things right.

“Bernard Collins carefully targeted his victims; one suffered from Alzheimer’s and was driven to two different banks to withdraw money for them. When the second bank became suspicious they callously left her there, distressed and confused. No work was ever identified as having been carried out at her home other than very minor repairs to a fence.”

County councillor Chris Metcalfe said the increased sentence reflected Collins’ “disgraceful behaviour.”