14 July 2023 , 12:09
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A devious son posed as his dead mother by putting on a female voice to con his grieving dad out of £56,000, a court heard.
Daniel Cuthbert moved large sums of money, including his father’s entire redundancy pay-out, into his own account. The 42-year-old drained his dad’s life savings over a 14-month period between 2017 and 2018.
He made repeated telephone banking calls pretending to be his father, Preston Crown Court heard. And on at least nine occasions he called to make transfers while putting on a female voice pretending to be his mother who had died months earlier.
The court heard Cuthbert posed as his late mum to transfer a total of £9,000 from his father's account into his own. Cuthbert, formerly of Stanion, Northamtonshire, also took out loans in his father’s name which led the father to lose his house after racking up huge debts, Lancs Live reports.
Daniel Cuthbert pretended to be his dead mother (Northamptonshire Police / SWNS)The court heard Cuthbert’s father became suspicious in mid-2017 and confronted his son but was too overcome with grief to take it further. In early 2018, the father was visited by an official from his building society informing him he was going to lose his house due to debt arrears.
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Northamptonshire Police’s Volume Fraud team launched an investigation and arrested Cuthbert. He admitted fraud by false representation and was jailed for two years on Thursday. He was also slapped with a five-year restraining order.
Sergeant Mike Rogers said: "This was a really despicable abuse of trust by this man who falsely represented his father and even his late mother, in order to defraud them out of more than £56,000.
"This was a complex investigation, but due to some excellent work by the lead investigator, Cuthbert has been jailed and will now have plenty of time to reflect on his actions. We hope this brings some closure to the victim who was put through a horrendous ordeal by his son only months after losing his wife."