POLICE have welcomed the sentence imposed on a previously convicted fraudster who left ten families without holidays for which they had paid.

As reported in The Northern Echo, today (Friday March 25), Kirsty Sheldon was given a two-year and eight-month prison sentence, several months after admitting charges of fraud and possession of criminal property.

Durham Crown Court heard the 45-year-old, of Defoe Crescent, Newton Aycliffe, spent months selling static caravan holidays to customers at the Haggerston Castle site in Northumberland, in 2017 and 2018.

While some customers went on to have satisfactory holidays, several turned up at the site, near Berwick, to discover the home they were expecting to stay in was already occupied, or the booking did not exist.

Some of those families were left to pay for alternative accommodation at the site.

The amount pocketed by Sheldon for the double-booked holidays was put at £4,244, but a further £2,068 was paid out by victims for alternative rentals on the site.

Sheldon gave a range of excuses to the victims as to why she was unable to offer them refunds.

Similarly, she also duped a businessman, in Scotland, to loan her increasing amounts, totalling £98,725, to help her set up a clothing business, My Couture Heaven, in Newton Aycliffe, in 2017.

Despite making all sorts of pledges to repay the money, she was only able to pay back about £8,000, leaving the lender more than £90,000 out of pocket.

The court heard he has been left with large debts and has had to give up his home as he has been unable to meet mortgage payments.

Despite admitting the crime, Sheldon disputed the amount by which she had fleeced the lender, but Judge James Adkin said she had clearly come up with a host of lies as to why she could not pay the money back and found against her following a trial of issue.

He, therefore, sentenced her on the basis it was £90,000-plus.

Read more: County Durham woman jailed again in further fraud cases

The court heard Sheldon, then known as Kirsty Cox, was jailed for two years at Teesside Crown Court in 2014 in a previous fraud, selling iPad computers at knock-down prices.

Although she did sell some devices, she was unable to keep up with demand, despite taking customers’ money, leaving more than 40 of them out of pocket by a total of about £450,000.

Following her latest conviction and imprisonment, crime proceeds inquiries have been put in place to see how much she will be able to pay in compensation to her latest victims.

The court was told the crime proceeds investigation may encompass the settlement figure agreed in the 2014 case, as she has failed to pay that sum.

In the wake of the latest conviction, Detective Constable Ali Blackett, of Durham Police’s Economic Fraud Unit, said: “Sheldon has brought misery to a number of families by tricking them out of their money.
“This is a heartless crime and Sheldon took advantage of hardworking people.

“Some of them will be affected by this for the rest of their lives.
“Hopefully this sends out a message that this kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable.”
Anyone seeking advice about fraud, or to report a suspected fraud, is asked to visit https://www.actionfraud.police.uk, the police fraud hotline.

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