UK man jailed after swindling inner west couple out of life savings in roof repair scam
A UK father was ordered to repay an elderly couple $10,700 after he swindled them out of their “life savings” — which they had been storing in a tin at their Haberfield home.
Inner West
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A UK father was ordered to repay an elderly couple $10,700 after he swindled them out of their “life savings” — which they had been storing in a tin at their Haberfield home — under the guise of offering to carry out unnecessary roof repairs.
At Burwood Court on Wednesday, Magistrate Magistrate Margaret McGlynn sentenced Martin Maughan to 18 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to five charges including dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
The father-of-five, who will be eligible for parole in a year, is appealing the sentence after repeatedly saying he was sorry and that he could pay the money back “straight away” as he appeared by video link.
On March 12, Burwood detectives arrested Maughan and co-accused Patrick Ward who tricked victims in their eighties and nineties in the inner west into believing their roofs needed repairing in exchange for cash.
The court heard a Haberfield couple, aged 91 and 93, handed over $10,700 — their life savings — which they had stashed away in a tin.
The men were also charged with common assault over an incident where one of the victims, an 88-year-old woman, had a bottle of water poured over her head.
In sentencing Ward, Magistrate McGlynn said the offences he had committed were “severely aggravated” by the age of his victims.
“You are a 34-year-old man, turning up at elderly people’s homes and trying to scam money out of them … by telling them their roof needed fixing,” she told the court.
“And in one case moving tiles which didn’t need to be moved so then the roof did need work.
“The fact that elderly people are not safe in their own homes from people trying to take advantage of them makes them unsafe emotionally. It’s a very sad set of circumstances.”
She told the court the sentence needed to reflect the “vulnerability” of the victims as well as making the accused “accountable” while acting as a deterrent to other would-be fraudsters.
She sentenced Ward to seven months in prison with a non- parole period of three months, taking into account his early guilty plea.
The men had been facing a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years.
The pair’s lawyer Theo Voros appealed for leniency as both men had big mortgages and families, including five children each, back in England where they are from.
He told the court the men had been subject to threats, extortion attempts and assaults by fellow prison inmates due to recent “negative” media coverage relating to roof scams.
Mr Voros said Maughan, 38, was the “sole breadwinner” for his family and was a roof tiler in England.
“His mother passed away when he was aged two and he lived with his grandmother from age 15 and his father passed away shortly after that as a result of alcoholism so he has had a difficult upbringing,” Mr Voros told the court.
“Despite those issues he tells me he has lived a crime-free life, because in the UK he does not have a record and he also has a mortgage of some substance.”