A judge said the siblings had ‘cynically and cruelly’ targeted a vulnerable woman in her 70s
A pair of “parasite” brothers conned a vulnerable woman into withdrawing thousands of pounds from her savings account, a court has heard.
Danny and Jamie Price persuaded the pensioner that she owed them money for roofing work before driving her to her building society to get the cash. However the pair were thwarted by bank staff who became concerned at what was going on and called the police.
Swansea Crown Court heard Jamie Price is a “persistent predator” of elderly and vulnerable people and has a string of convictions for frauds and distraction-type burglaries against people in the 70s and 80s while his younger brother Danny was learning his sibling’s “vile trade”.
Brian Simpson, prosecuting, told the court that on December 11 last year Danny Price knocked on the door of the Swansea home of a woman in her 70s and introduced himself as “Andrew” and told her she owed £6,000 for VAT for work done on her roof.
The court heard the woman had in fact previously had roofing work done on her property by builders but that the bill for the job had been settled in full.
The prosecutor said the woman, who had “significant memory loss issues which would have been obvious to anyone who spoke to her”, told the defendant that she did not have the money but he said he would come back the following day.
The woman subsequently rang her sister and told her about the cold caller and was noted to be “agitated and distressed”. For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter
The court heard the Price brothers returned to the victim’s house on December 12 and while Jamie Price stayed in their car his younger sibling Danny, who was wearing a hi-vis jacket and again calling himself “Andrew” and claiming to be from a roofing firm, called on the pensioner.
The brothers then drove the woman to the Principality building society in Swansea city centre and dropped her off while they parked the car and went to a bookmakers.
The prosecutor said the complainant explained to staff at the Principality why she wanted to withdraw £6,000 in cash but the staff became concerned at what they were hearing and called the police.
The court heard police launched a manhunt and identified Jamie Price from CCTV footage in the city centre while Danny Price was identified as the registered keeper of the car they had used to drive their victim to town.
Jamie Price was located and arrested on January 6 and Danny Price was arrested six days later when he walked into a police station.
Danny Price, aged 19, of Brown Avenue, Llanelli, and 27-year-old Jamie Price, formerly of Second Avenue, Clase, Morriston, but now of no fixed abode, had both previously pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation when they appeared in the dock for sentencing.
Danny Price has no previous convictions. Jamie Price has previous convictions for shoplifting assault, sexual assault, fraud by false representation, and burglary.
The fraud cases saw him targeting people in their 70s and 80s asking for cash for non-existent gardening and maintenance work. When one of his victims, a man in his 70s living in Gorseinon, refused to pay, the defendant threatened that he tell the police the pensioner was viewing pornography.
The burglaries saw Price targeting elderly and vulnerable people in Morriston in a series of “distraction burglaries” during which he pretended to be a gardener or to be concerned about a victim’s dog which he said had escaped from her garden. He was jailed for three and a half years for the burglaries in 2019 with a judge telling him it was hard to think of a more “despicable” way of making money than stealing from vulnerable men and women in their 70s and 80s.
Giles Hayes, for Danny Price, said his client was from a Traveller background who had left school at the age of 14 and had always worked in the family landscaping business. He said the teenager “has no desire to follow his brother’s path”.
Judge Paul Thomas KC said the Price brothers “cynically and cruelly” tried to take money from a lady with obvious vulnerabilities and had shown their victim “no mercy” as they set about “ruthlessly taking advantage of her”. He said it was a mystery to him how the brothers could sleep at night.
The judge praised the actions of Principality staff in identifying the brothers as “parasites” and in thwarting their fraud.
Judge Thomas described Jamie Price as a “persistent predator of vulnerable people” and said it seemed to him that Danny Price had thought he would like to learn his sibling’s “vile trade”.
He said while Danny Price had been “all too willing” to take part in the scam he was satisfied the young brother was “under the malign influence” of Jamie Price at the time.
With a discount for his guilty plea Danny Price was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work and to complete a rehabilitation course. Judge Thomas said while he was prepared to suspend the sentence he was doing so “not without some misgivings”.
Jamie Price had previously been sentenced to 56 months in prison for a series offences one of which was the fraud jointly carried out with his sibling.
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