ONE of the men sentenced for defrauding a vulnerable pensioner when he charged her more than £1,600 for substandard work was already serving a prison sentence for a similar offence.

Jamie Gascoigne, who was jailed for 12 months yesterday at Teesside Crown Court, had a history of targeting vulnerable or elderly people.

Previously, the 30-year-old was stopped in his tracks by suspicious bank workers as he was trying to con an 82-year-old woman out of £6,000.

He was convicted of the fraud last year at the same court after denying doing anything wrong.

Jurors heard how Gascoigne, pictured below, and another man turned up outside the victim's Hartlepool home in a white van and claimed her flat extension roof needed repairs.

The Northern Echo: Jamie GascoigneJamie Gascoigne

They quoted her £6,000 and took her to Barclays Bank on York Road, to withdraw the money but staff became concerned about the victim’s demeanour, Staff called the police and also took a photograph of the white van’s number plate, leading to his arrest.

The dodgy builder, of Greenwood Road, Hartlepool, was jailed for three years last May.

Yesterday, he was jailed for a further 12 months after pleading guilty to fraud and converting criminal property into cash after targeting a vulnerable Stockton pensioner.

Sentencing him, Judge Stephen Ashurst said: “She paid you £1,600 for work to be carried out and it’s a fact of this case that when a surveyor checked the work, it showed it was entirely unnecessary.”

A victim impact statement prepared by the dementia suffering woman’s daughter said: “To see my elderly mother upset because of Gascoigne is upsetting to us all.

“She has been reduced to a shadow of her former self and I make it clear this is down to Gascoigne and not her illness.”