Loan shark preyed on vulnerable victims (From The Northern Echo)

Loan shark preyed on vulnerable victims

3:00pm Saturday 11th February 2012 in Peterlee News By Gavin Havery, Reporter (Derwentside & Tyneside)

A LOAN shark who intimidated vulnerable people and preyed on “hapless”

victims has been jailed for nine months.

Newcastle Crown Court was told that Anthony Rutherford, 50, of Brooklyn Terrace, North Murton, County Durham, began lending money without a licence after receiving a £27,000 redundancy payment.

Typically, he would charge customers 50 per cent of what they had borrowed in interest payments, but not tell them how much they owed.

Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said loan books recovered by police suggested he had 144 clients.

If they could not pay, they would be threatened with violence, although that was never carried out.

Ms Masters said: “The defendant preyed on victims who were hapless with money.

“He said interest would depend on who the people were.”

Rutherford had previously pleaded guilty to three charges of illegal money lending between 2003 and 2009 and asked for seven others to be taken into consideration.

He also admitted one charge of converting criminal property and failing to inform the Department of Work and Pensions of a change in his living arrangements.

It meant he was paid £5,860 in jobseekers’ allowance that he was not entitled to.

Richard Bloomfield, in mitigation, said: “He is from a deprived part of County Durham.

“Easington, near to where all of this has been going on, is regarded as one of the most deprived parts of the UK. They do not have any banks because no one has any money and so there is no one to lend them money.”

The investigation into Rutherford was led by the North-East Money Lending Team, which was last year made part of the England Money Lending Team.

Rutherford’s case was the team’s last and was overseen by trading standards officers at Durham County Council with help from police and the Department of Work and Pensions.

PC Ali Blackett said: “I am pleased for his victims that he has got a custodial sentence because they have suffered over a prolonged period.”

Judge Michael Cartlidge jailed Rutherford for eight months for the money-lending and one month for the benefit fraud.

Craig Hudson, the council’s fair trading manager, said: “We are pleased to see the courts take a tough stance against loan sharks who prey on vulnerable members of communities.”