Family trio jailed after elderly Shropshire man victim of £14,000 fraud
A father and son-in law who defrauded an elderly Shropshire man out of more than £14,000 by carrying out shoddy and overpriced work to his home have been jailed.
The 85-year-old victim, a retired Army officer from the south of the county, was targeted by Fred Smith and his son-in-law George Thomas Humberstone, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The pair, along with Smith’s other son-in-law Mitchell Seedhouse, had defrauded dozens of elderly and vulnerable victims across the country.
They carried out unnecessary, shoddy and grossly over-priced work to their roofs.
The frauds totalled more than £146,000 and included 27 victims across North Yorkshire, East Riding, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Wolverhampton.
The 85-year-old Shropshire resident, who lived alone, was targeted by Smith and Humberstone on a number of occasions in 2014.
He paid them a total of £14,830, but an expert who examined the work stated it was worth just £2,855, plus VAT, if it had been completed properly. He described some of the work as “unorthodox and aesthetically poor” and remedial works are now required to the victim’s roof.
The prosecution followed an investigation by Operation Gauntlet, the multi-agency safeguarding team hosted at North Yorkshire County Council’s Trading Standards service.
Arrested
Smith and Seedhouse were arrested at a traveller site in Great Wyrley in a joint operation between Operation Gauntlet and Staffordshire Police in September 2016.
Following their arrests, Humberstone was interviewed in prison in May 2017 where he was serving more than three years for similar offences. Multiple other victims were then identified in the investigation through the tracing of payments into the offenders’ bank accounts.
Smith, 62, Humberstone, 35, and Seedhouse, 26, all of Walsall Road, Great Wyrley, were sentenced at Teesside Crown Court on Thursday.
They had each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud between March 2014 and September 2016.
Smith was jailed for three years, Seedhouse for five years and Humberstone for three-and-a-half years.
All three were also given criminal behaviour orders, prohibiting them from conducting any form of property repairs at occupied residential properties and from cold calling for a period of 10 years.
Sentencing the men, Judge Sean Morris said: “I cannot think of anything more low; picking on the weak and elderly.”
County Councillor Andrew Lee, executive member for North Yorkshire Trading Standards, said: “This case is a perfect example of collaborative working to deal with a team of offenders who considered the elderly and vulnerable to be rich pickings, who existed purely to fund their luxury lifestyles. We take the protection of the vulnerable in our communities extremely seriously.”
Fraud victim feels ‘ashamed’ and wants to forget encounter
The Shropshire pensioner who was defrauded out of £14,830 by Smith and Humberstone said he feels ashamed and wants to forget the whole encounter.
In a victim impact statement, he said: “The entire encounter with Fred Smith is something I have tried to shut out as a phase in my life I want to forget.
“I was a serving Army officer for 33 years, many of which were spent on the front line, and following my retirement my wife and I had a few enjoyable years before she was taken ill.
“For the next 27 years I became her full-time carer, as she was unable to do things for herself and became unable to speak.
“She sadly died some time ago leaving me living alone but managing very well with some outside help for cleaning, gardening and shopping, paid for by attendance allowance that I became eligible for.
“I have also recovered from two bouts of cancer.
“Having achieved and coped with so much in my life, I feel ashamed that Fred Smith was able to undermine all this and I have surrendered to him without a fight.”
