Fraudstar swindled over £14,000 from elderly relative

A fraudster who swindled more than £14,000 from an elderly relative was given a 15 month jail term last Friday at Lisburn Crown Court.
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Fifty year old Harry Williamson, Sloan Street, Lisburn, will spend three months behind bars with the rest of the sentence on supervised licence.

Judge Patrick Lynch told him he had caused Roberta Ling ‘additional stress’ by maintaining his innocence until his trial was about to start, essentially labelling her ‘as a liar’.

A jury had been sworn but just before his victim was to testify Williamson pleaded guilty to 24 offences of committing fraud by falsely representing that he had authority to use her Post Office debit card on dates between September 12, 2012, and May 7 last year.

Withdrawing £600 each time the court heard previously that Williamson defrauded a total of £14,300 from his victim after he acquired ‘by some means’ her banking card.

The court heard Williamson had been helping Ms Ling on the likes of shopping trips but her family became suspicious when they noticed money disappearing from her Post Office account.

Arrested and interviewed Williamson initially denied having any dealings with the card.

The defendant later claiming that he had Ms Ling’s authority to use it but finally admitted his guilt.

Judge Lynch said it had been a ‘mean minded and nasty offence’ against a lady who had ‘placed her trust in you, totally misplaced as it turned out’.

Describing it as a ‘breach of trust’ case the judge said Williamson’s claims of innocence put his victim ‘in the position of being an alleged liar.’

He added that Williamson’s dishonesty on a woman who thought he was a friend, had affected her greatly in that she now doesn’t feel safe going out unless she’s with a close relative.

Quoting from her victim impact statement Judge Lynch read: “I feel that if Harry admitted what he had done initially this would have caused a lot less stress to me.”

The judge added: “When it boils down to it, this was a mean minded offence which must be met with an immediate term of imprisonment.”

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