A pair of heartless thieves who tricked elderly people out of cash including a blind Salford grandfather have been jailed.
SalfordOnline.com reported in December last year how the thieves targeted a vulnerable partially-sighted 92-year-old pretending to be collecting for charity.
It was so traumatic for the victim he was forced to move out of his family home into residential care.
The man’s granddaughter told the paper how one offender, who was caught on CCTV, wormed his way into the man’s house on Wednesday 3 December 2014 asking for donations for “people who are worse off”.
The 92-year-old offered £5, but the offender said, ‘I want more than that’ and ripped the wallet from his hands, stealing around £100 and his bank card before casually leaving through the front door.
Read: Blind Salford grandfather robbed twice in one month
Now homeless 27-year-old Martin Lawrence and his 21-year-old accomplice Chantelle Doherty have been jailed for a total of seven years and four moths.
The court heard how Lawrence was finally caught after DNA from a stolen bottle of beer left at a victim’s home was traced back to him.
On Saturday 9 November 2013, Lawrence and another man went to the home of a man in his late 90s on Worsley Road claiming to work for a paving company persuaded him to hand over a large amount of money.
A few days later, Lawrence returned asking for more money, but the man refused.
Lawrence asked him for a drink and when the man kindly went to make him one, Lawrence went upstairs, where the man found him rooting through his drawers and told him to leave. He later found his wallet had been stolen and rang the police.
Lawrence also returned in February and March 2014 asking to do more work on the driveway, but the man refused and called the police.
On Tuesday 9 December 2014, Lawrence approached a 54-year-old man in his garden at his home on Basten Drive in Salford.
Lawrence claimed to be from the police and asked the man if they could go into his house to talk about a recent crime. The man became suspicious and asked to see his ID before asking him to leave. Lawrence attacked the man before stealing his wallet
The same day Lawrence and Doherty went into a pub on Bolton Road in Pendlebury and ordered around £70 worth of food and drinks. They left a stolen debit card as payment but this was declined, so they told staff they would return to their hotel room next door to get another card, but they never came back.
The pair then went to the home of the 92-year-old victim on Bolton Road, persuading him to let them in, where they stole several bottles of whisky, a decanter, and a moblie phone.
DNA from a bottle of beer stolen from the pub and left at the victim’s home was matched to Lawrence.
At Manchester Crown Court on Thursday 16 April Lawrence was jailed for five years and four months after being found guilty of three counts of burglary, three counts of fraud and one count each of robbery and attempted theft.
Doherty, of Clifton Road in Prestwich, pleaded guilty to one count of burglary and one count of fraud and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Police Constable Michelle Ingham based at Swinton police station said: “It is difficult to convey the devastating impact these cruel acts have had on these two victims.
“Lawrence repeatedly targeted two vulnerable elderly men in the sanctity of their own homes, a place where they should feel safe and where they and their families had worked hard to ensure these two men could still enjoy a high level of independence in their old age.
“As a direct result of what happened here, one of these men has had to move out of his family home, where until this point he had lived happily, and into residential care, which is simply heart-wrenching for both him and his family.
“I hope that today’s sentencing acts as a warning to others who may think they can get away with targeting more vulnerable members in our society – this sort of heinous crime is one that we take extremely seriously and we will do everything in our power to trace those responsible and put them behind bars for their actions.”
