Roofer is jailed for fleecing woman, 81

11:36am Tuesday 18th July 2006

A ROOFER who conned an 81year-old woman out of £5,500 has been jailed.

David Stokoe, 37, from Darlington, was prosecuted by North Yorkshire trading standards department after it investigated the case of the frail Northallerton woman.

The woman was too frightened to identify the three-man gang, but police were able to match up Stokoe's signature with the handwritten receipts she had been given.

Stokoe, of Edgemoor Road, pleaded guilty to four charges of knowingly making false statements in the course of trading for business from January to March last year.

He was jailed for 12 months and given an anti-social behaviour order banning him from dealing in buildings and land services for five years.

Richard Bennett, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court: "She is described as a very trusting, but clearly also a very vulnerable woman.

"There were clearly offences, the difficulty was that the complainant was not willing to make any identification for fear of repercussions."

He added: "When he Stokoe was arrested, he signed the custody sergeant's record and it was put to him that the invoices had been written by him also.

"He accepted he had driven around the men involved in the job and that he had written out the invoices."

Dan Cordey, mitigating, accepted it was a serious offence committed against an elderly woman, "which was meanspirited in the extreme".

He became involved because he was in debt.

But another side to Stokoe's character was that he did voluntary work at a youth centre in Haughton, Darlington.

Judge Brian Forster told Stokoe: "You and others hit upon a scheme whereby you could charge a lady of 81 for work that had not been done.

"Courts have a duty to protect vulnerable members of the community. You must have had it in mind that that this lady was an easy target.

This offending was so serious that only a custodial sentence can be imposed."

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