YP Comment: Local support can help elderly

It is one of the most heartless forms of crime '“ the targeting of ill and vulnerable pensioners fleeced of their hard-earned money by the unscrupulous.Sadly, such offending is now so widespread that a new taskforce has been set up in West Yorkshire to help tackle financial exploitation of the elderly through scams, fraud and doorstep crime.

Appalling recent cases include an 83-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer who lost their £786,000 life savings to mass marketing fraud and an 84-year-old who lost £164,000 to doorstep criminals. The West Yorkshire Financial Exploitation and Abuse Team has already had success in helping to secure convictions against ruthless company directors Robert Morrison and Paul Towers, who used their elderly victims as “meal tickets” in a rogue trading scam that netted them £2m as they preyed on dementia sufferers and the blind.

One of the saddest aspects of the taskforce’s work is concentrating on the financial abuse of the vulnerable by family members or carers. Just last year, Yorkshire carer Donna White was jailed for stealing from an 84-year-old woman she cared for after being caught taking money multiple times – even on Christmas Day.

White was only caught after the victim’s family became suspicious about money going missing and set up a secret camera.

While the initiative is to be welcomed, three points should be made in conclusion – regret that it should be needed, ruefulness that the trust of loved ones can’t always be taken for granted and recognition that continued vigilance is the best safeguard of all.