Judge: 'How you live with yourself I do not know'
A Nuneaton roofer who preyed on elderly and vulnerable people, charging thousands of pounds for work that often did not need carrying out, has been jailed.
Patrick Christopher Dunne, aged 20, of Griff Park Travellers’ Site, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was sentenced to two years and nine months at York Crown Court on Friday (June 21).
Dunne pleading guilty to 34 counts of fraud and consumer protection offences as well as admitting laundering the proceeds of his offending.
During the sentencing the judge praised the work carried out by North Yorkshire’s trading standards team.
Dunne was arrested in May 2018 as part of Operation Gauntlet, a multi-agency safeguarding team based at North Yorkshire County Council Trading Standards.
It followed complaints from the Scarborough area in August and September 2017 while Dunne was trading as Phoenix Roofing.
Officers identified numerous victims in North Yorkshire and the West Midlands who had been visited by Dunne between February 2017 and May 2018.
The court was told he would offer to carry out inexpensive quick fixes and then inform the householders he had “discovered” further problems.
This additional work cost significantly more money, sometimes running into thousands of pounds.
He was prosecuted in relation to 17 victims, including a number of elderly and vulnerable people, in a case supported with funds from National Trading Standards and Warwickshire Trading Standards.
Sentencing Dunne, the Recorder of York Judge Sean Morris said: “In my view, you embarked on a deliberate course of conduct, targeting elderly and vulnerable people to make money for yourself.
“Some have been affected financially, some are fearful that somebody will come back and others are disgusted at themselves for no good reason.
“How you live with yourself I do not know.
"These courts will protect the elderly and vulnerable.
"When people are brought to book, and it’s expensive to do so for this kind of offence, the proper punishment must be seen to be handed out.
“This has to be looked at as a campaign of targeting elderly people.”
Dunne also received a Criminal Behaviour Order, banning him from cold calling for five years on his release from prison.
He will also be a subject to a Proceeds of Crime Act confiiscation case in a bid to seize assets he bought using cash from his crime and to compensate the victims.
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:10 am