Cruel conmen target schoolboy fund-raiser with fake £20 notes

Ten year old was duped by fraudsters



Incredible community spirit rallied around a fund-raising schoolboy who was duped by fraudsters.

Desperate to help an appeal for his beloved Nuneaton and Bedworth Sea Cadets, Stan Barker set-up stall during Bedworth’s Christmas Lights switch-on.

He was selling festive goody bags for £2 but found himself being victimised by cruel fraudsters, not once but three times.

The heartless conmen used fake £20 notes to buy items from him, taking the change genuine shoppers had given him.

It left the ten-year-old absolutely devastated according to his mum Kebrina.

“They all gave him fake £20 notes, so they had pretty much all of his change and just walked away,” she explained.

“We didn’t realise until one of the other traders said ‘be careful, there are some dodgy £20 notes about’ so we decided to check.

"To be fair, they looked quite good. My son is only ten, I didn’t think I would have to warn him about dodgy money, you wouldn’t have thought someone would do that to a child.

“He took it really badly, it wiped out pretty much all of the money he had taken.”

She contacted her friend to spread the word: “I was on my break from work, I phoned to see how they were getting on and he couldn’t speak to me, he was that upset, so I messaged my friend Kerry and told her to put something on Facebook to warn them about what had happened and how these people were using fake £20 notes."

The response was almost immediate – and staggering.

“A man came up to him on the stall and gave him £20 and said ‘please have this, we are not all that bad’ and someone else gave him a ten pound note too, it just exploded,” she said.

“People were asking on Facebook how they could donate so they set-up a page on justgiving and money just came flooding in.”

B@st@rds.

May karma get them.

If you are regular shopper in Bedworth the shops will always warn you of any thing like this even if there is dipping your bags. Last time this happened I was told it was the bank at the top that frequently give them out in the cash machine.