Episode 5 Doorstep Crime 999

All across the UK we are following your success stories

of fighting back against doorstep crime,

rip-off rogue traders, cold-calling conmen, you name it.

We are all united against them.

We are celebrating the work of award-winning police

and trading standards teams all over the country.

What's more, with your help we have been busy spreading the word

about how to show these crooks the door.

Today I meet a remarkable war veteran who'd twigged that he was

the target of an audacious six grand roofing scam.

Thanks to his bravery the crooks were brought to justice.

We are living in a jungle of predators and prey. I was prey.

A rogue repair man from Staffordshire is banged up

for blowing 50,000 a year on a gambling addiction,

which, by the way, he funded by ripping off elderly victims.

Money was taken up front and there was either two results,

one, the work was never started, or work was started but never finished.

Plus, one of my favourites, the heroic off-duty police officer

who caught a charity scammer red-handed.

It does not get much lower than what this male actually did.

I cannot use the word I would like to use for him, obviously, on camera.

Hello and welcome to the programme. We begin with a fascinating fact.

The Office of Fair Trading tells us that roofing scams

account for the largest number of complaints about rogue traders.

Believe it or not, more than 1,500 of them every year.

I have been to see a lovely man in Kent who realised that he

was being conned by door-to-door repairmen.

They wanted to deal with his guttering.

But he was determined not to lose his life savings.

And his bravery is an inspiration to all of us.

We are in the bustling county town of Maidstone.

Take a look at this CCTV footage of a young man drawing money

from the cash machine on the left.

It seems innocent enough

but in fact the card he is using belongs to a 92-year-old war veteran

who was targeted by this man and his accomplice.

They pressurised him into having unnecessary work

carried out on his home.

I think it is disgusting that I should be targeted by these people.

I felt they were genuine.

This was a particularly despicable crime.

They focused on Mr Gale, the exploited his generous nature

and his friendliness, and maximised their gain.

It was in November 2010 that John Hanley

and his partner in crime, John Bryan,

knocked on the door of John Gale.

He is keen to tell me the whole story about how

he was pressurised into this unnecessary roofing work,

in the hope that other viewers

won't have to suffer the same dreadful experience.

Tell me about the day these con men came calling at your front door.

They came to the door, two gentleman,

and asked me if they could do some work on the guttering.

And I said, no, I did not want any work done.

I could not afford to have the work done.

But there was some trouble with the guttering

and would they do a repair job for me?

Now, unfortunately, this request for repair work was just the excuse

that Hanley and Bryan needed to get in a foot in the door.

Once inside they began a very lengthy sales pitch.

Describe to me the kind of pressure you were under in your house

when they were trying to talk you into doing this guttering.

They explained to me that the longer I waited

the more damage would occur to the roof.

And it would probably fall down

and if somebody was calling in at the house it could injure them

and I would have a very huge claim for compensation from the person.

This is why I asked them to repair it,

to alleviate that possibility.

After more than three hours,

yes, I said three hours of pressure selling,

John agreed to have the guttering replaced at a cost of £2,400.

But there was nothing wrong with his roof

and it was one of the oldest tricks in the rogue roofer's book.

Very familiar to the Trading Standards department

at Kent county council.

The next day they wanted the deposit of £300.

A cheque was unacceptable to them. They wanted cash.

So they took Mr Gale to the bank.

Unfortunately it was closed,

so they took him shopping and then found out he had

a cashpoint card which could be used,

and they subsequently went along, obtained his PIN number,

and obtained the £300 deposit from his account.

But as a result they received a receipt which showed

Mr Gale had a balance in excess of £6,000.

That was to become key in future transactions.

Initially, John put the men's behaviour down to kindness

and had been swept along with it.

But it was not long before he realised the truth of the matter.

When I got home I realised how stupid I had been.

I immediately phoned the bank and cancelled the card.

He obviously took the right decision but it was too late.

Know that Hanley and Bryan

knew exactly how much money John had in the bank

it was not long before they came back

to invent more work which they claim needed doing.

This time they said it was felting work,

which would cost, wait for it, £4,000.

Did you feel that the felting needed doing?

Well, I didn't know, you see,

because I did not even know there was felt on the roof!

Technically, I was at their mercy

because I did not understand roof work at all.

This additional work brought the total that John owed to £6,000.

Now, he went along with this, but very reluctantly.

With the extra money now agreed,

the men try to get John to pay up as quickly as possible.

This meant that Hanley and Bryan

drove John to the bank for a second time.

They wanted him to withdraw £3,000

but by now he was becoming very suspicious about the whole affair.

What were you thinking at this time?

I was thinking that that was the amount that they had seen

on my bank account statement,

that they got from the cashpoint machine.

And that they were going to have every penny of it.

With alarm bells ringing,

he knew that he would have to take action, and fast.

And we find out a little later on how John dealt with those crooks.

Thanks to all this technology

I have another example doorstep crime, right here.

Hello. I'm Brian Mycock of Staffordshire County Council

and I'd like to you a case of a rogue builder

who thought he could get away

with taking thousands of pounds of money off local people.

Thank-you very much.

And in fact, this story has certainly piqued our interest.

So we went straight to Staffordshire to find out what's been going on.

Well, it turned out that this man, 50-year-old Anthony Mander,

was one of Staffordshire's most prolific door-stepping rogues.

The compulsive con-artist scammed vulnerable people

throughout the county in order to fund a desperate addiction.

Mander was systematic.

In a way, he was a mini crime-wave in his own right.

There were 17 families that were victims.

The amount of money relating to that was about £27,000,

but there was further victims.

We estimate the total was over £100,000.

£100,000 pounds?! From 17 families?! Utterly appalling.

But one of Mander's victims was about to fight back.

She wants to share her story with us,

but prefers to keep her identify private,

so we'll going to call her Felicity.

In the bitter winter of 2009,

she was having problems with her radiators.

She decided to spend a considerable amount of her savings

on installing some new ones.

Now, by sheer chance, or should I say bad luck?

Anthony Mander just happened to be prowling

the streets of Staffordshire looking for residents to rip off.

Mander had previous convictions for deception

involving elderly people and building.

Money was taken up front,

some large amounts, some small amounts,

and there was either two results.

One, the work was never started.

Or the work was started and never finished.

Unfortunately, Felicity was about to find that out for herself.

The doorbell rang and when I went to the door

this man was there asking if I needed any odd jobs doing.

Because I was in need of some heating

downstairs in the house I asked him in.

Mander told her he could fit two radiators for £460.

But we'll never know how he hit on this figure

since he didn't give her an invoice.

But Felicity was pretty cold and desperate

and with her heating in total shut-down,

she was thoroughly taken in by the rip-off merchant.

Mander comes over to older people as very friendly.

He has a personality

that appears to me...

to generate trust,

particularly among older people.

Mander claimed he needed £460 up front

and suggested that Felicity withdraw the cash straight away.

Any alarm bells ringing for you yet?

I went to the bank and came back home

and he was there waiting for me which I thought was a bit weird.

Mander then told Felicity that she should have a new boiler fitted.

In fact, she really needed to have a whole new heating system installed.

Oh and by the way, he actually wanted £1,800 up front.

What a rotter!

Mander's methodology was very similar across all his victims.

He'd quote for a smaller job.

He'd then say more work should be done.

In this case, it was radiators to start with.

Then it was radiators plus boiler.

And that's the way he dealt with people.

In a matter of days,

Felicity handed him a large chunk of her savings

and had nothing to show for it.

I was worried because I was paying him money in cash.

I said, "So how much more do I owe you?"

And he said, "Well, I've got to pay the men."

And I said, "What do you mean, you've got to pay the men?

"They've done nothing. I've not seen any men.

"If there's no men, I want the money back."

Of course, Mander's men never materialised.

And by now, Felicity was really starting to worry.

When I rang him repeatedly every day,

he told me quite bluntly that

it wasn't on and I said, "Well, it is on because

"you should be ringing me."

After several frustrating weeks in a freezing cold house

with no men at work

and no sign of the radiators or boiler that she'd paid for,

Felicity's patience finally ran out.

I felt gutted and I felt angry.

I said, "I've thought about this

"and I am cancelling the whole project

"and I want my money back." He said, "You realise

"you won't get it back straight away."

I said, "I want the money back" and I put the phone down on him

and I rang the police.

Good for you, Felicity! The police immediately passed on her details

to Brian Mycock at Staffordshire Trading Standards.

When we first spoke to her, she was upset.

She didn't know which way to turn. She realised she'd probably lost

quite a lot of money and she just wanted help and assistance.

Thankfully, Brian was soon able to compile a comprehensive list

of complaints against Mander. Police and Trading Standards moved in.

When I heard that he'd been arrested, I was very pleased.

I was so pleased that they'd got him,

but not hopeful of a good result when he'd gone to court.

Brian's team worked hard to gather a raft of damning evidence

against Anthony Mander. They soon discovered the shocking truth

about what really happened to Felicity's money

and just wait till you hear this.

The door-stepping scam-artist was in fact

an online gambling obsessive

who was spending almost £50,000 a year on his addiction.

When I found out that he'd spent thousands of pounds gambling,

I was mortified.

He'd had all the money I had

and I didn't have much.

I just feel stunned,

angry...

a whole lot of emotions that go through my mind.

At Stoke on Trent Crown Court, Anthony Mander pleaded guilty

to 29 fraud offences

and was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.

The full extent of his cynical scam

is still very much in Felicity's mind.

But one thing's for sure. I wouldn't like to be in his shoes

should he ever run into this feisty lady again.

I'd like to get a set of stocks set up in the town...

put him in them...and I'd throw rotten eggs at him,

and get a megaphone and shout, "Come and watch, come and watch!

"See what I'm doing to this man who has taken my money, to gamble it,

"when all I wanted was a bit of heating!"

I think you'll agree, quite a lady!

Still to come...

the off-duty police officer who tracked down a door to door cheat

who conned members of the public

and tried to deprive a charity of its funding.

It made me, I suppose, angry in a way.

That the fact that somebody is going round

saying that they are collecting for a worthy cause,

and they're not genuine, taking advantage of good nature!

As always, thank you very much for all your letters and emails.

Wa have one from Brian Abram,

who says when somebody tells him that his house needs some work done to it,

he tells them the property is rented

and then offers the name of the letting agent.

He finds that they soon disappear.

Well, that certainly sounds like it does the trick, Brian.

So thank you very much indeed for the tip.

Now, at this stage we catch-up with John Gale in Kent,

who was being ripped off by rogue roofers.

They'd discovered that he had around £6,000 in his bank account

and they simply wanted the lot.

So how did John turn the tables on the crooks?

He was upset and unsettled by the idea that

they could be inventing roofing jobs in order to scam his savings.

So he took the brave decision

to get in touch with both Trading Standards and Kent Police

and it proved to be the turning point in the case.

We were very concerned with the situation

and we immediately reacted, and attended Mr Gale's house,

where we found the vehicle of the conmen just leaving the property.

And by phoning that detail through to the police

they were subsequently stopped and arrested on scene.

Were you worried about phoning the police?

Not at all. You know, they were the people to call.

Trading Standards sent in an independent surveyor

to examine the work carried out by John Hanley and John Brien.

The inevitable conclusion was

that the roof did not require any felting work

and even if it had, it should only have cost £200.

Poor John had been conned from the moment he'd opened his front door.

Sadly, his story isn't unique,

so I'm keen to find out how conmen everywhere

worm their way into people's lives.

Richard, the thing that amazes me with all these cases

is how cunning all these people are on the doorstep.

Take me inside their head, as to how they do all of that.

Well, I mean, these are professional conmen, they do it day in day out,

and they build up, really, such skills

at manipulating people's minds, really,

to convince them that they need this work done.

And, you know, they build up that trust that's not there in reality

but in the victim's mind they then become their friends

and that's when they become susceptible to being conned.

How would you describe, with all your experience,

these kind of people who do scams on the doorstep like this?

Well, these kind of people are nasty.

They know how to exploit people like John Gale

and they know how to, sort of, sow the seeds

that make him decide that the work is incredibly necessary -

is urgent, needs to be done.

And they spend, you know, many hours breaking down those barriers,

building up those friendships

and, ultimately, they get away with what they can.

So, in the end, what are we all to learn from this?

We need to be aware of our family members

who may well be living on their own

and make sure that, actually, any improvement work that needs doing,

we help them through that,

rather than let them chose somebody that knocks on their door.

And now for the good news -

John Hanley and John Brien got what they really deserved

on the 23rd of December 2011.

Each received a 12 month suspended sentence.

They were also fitted with electronic tags,

ordered to carry out 275 hours of community service,

pay the costs of £1,250

and to pay back the £3,300 they had taken from John.

Now, unpleasant as the ordeal was,

it's taught him a very valuable lesson.

I've learnt not to do any financial transactions on the doorstep,

for a start.

I mean if they were a reputable company

they wouldn't be coming to the door to get work!

So, yes, ignore anybody, cold callers on the doorstep.

Well, there you have it -

probably the best and most simple advice.

And, of course, our thanks to John Gale for sharing his experience with us.

Now it's time to reveal how another doorstep criminal was brought to justice,

thanks to a courageous man in North Wales.

And I can promise you a truly heart-warming story.

In May 2011, North Wales Police caught up with one Anthony Lewis.

He'd been cold calling at homes around the Wrexham area,

collecting money which he claimed

was going to support the Help for Heroes charity.

It made me, I suppose, angry in a way.

That the fact that somebody is going round

saying that they are actually collecting for a worthy cause

and they're not genuine, and taking advantage of people's good nature.

What Lewis was doing was underhand and despicable, really.

Particularly given the fact that, you know,

there are individuals of his age currently risking their lives

on the front line in Afghanistan

Police believe Lewis conned over 100 people,

taking advantage of their kindness.

The fraud that Lewis was undertaking...

had gone on for a number of months.

He'd purport to be planning to do a sponsored run

round the Brenig reservoir, in North Wales,

at a given date in aid of the Help for Heroes charity.

Off-duty officer Martin Jones

has served with North Wales Police for ten years.

When Lewis target him he made his biggest mistake.

'Came to our door...'

Very plausible young man, well-dressed,

even said he was collecting for Help for Heroes charity.

Said he was actually going through the selection process himself,

he had ID on him, he was carrying a passport with him,

a couple of sponsorship forms.

Lewis claimed to be collecting money

in support of wounded servicemen and women

It comes as no surprise that so many residents

wanted to support such a worthwhile cause.

'He came to the door, talking to my wife.'

It was really suspicious to me

but, a general member of the public, it may not have been that obvious.

Martin had heard reports of a young man

attempting a charity scam in the area,

and so his curiosity was immediately aroused.

Obviously, in my role as a police officer,

bulletins go around all the time,

intelligence of what's going on in the area,

and a colleague in work had actually sent out an email

to say that there was a bogus collector going round the area

and in fact quite a good part of North Wales, collecting for Help the Heroes.

So Martin decided that it was time

to put a stop to what he suspected was a scam.

After calling his colleagues for back-up, he decided to follow him.

Jumped in my car and decided to drive around the estate

to see if I could still see him.

Didn't come across him and thought, "I've blown it, I've lost him."

Decided to come back, but as I'm coming back I caught sight of him further down another avenue.

So I parked up then, I called it up to the control room,

just basically where he was,

and made sure that someone was still on their way up,

and that's when I clocked him

going into the cul de sac where he actually lived.

Thanks to Martin's quick thinking,

police were able to bring Lewis in for questioning.

Officer Iolo Edwards led the team.

When he was arrested,

we found sponsorship forms dating back to the summer of 2010,

and those activities carried on at various points

right through until when he was arrested in May of 2011.

Obviously, I was really pleased, my colleagues had turned up

and we'd finally identified this male

that we'd been after for a quite a few months.

Lewis had been busy right across North Wales

knocking on doors and conning people.

When I interviewed him,

he claimed to have sent over £600

on one occasion into the charity.

We know that he visited well over 100 people.

It was quite a productive scam.

Productive indeed, and shocking as well.

But at first Lewis did not own up to his callous activities.

He carried on lying throughout all the way through,

he continued to claim that he was an innocent individual.

Police sifted through the fraudulent sponsorship forms

found at Lewis' address.

They then traced many of those who had donated their money.

A lot of the people that were spoken to who had given money.

There was a sense of anger more than anything that they'd been conned.

One person that had contributed was a serving soldier himself,

and quite clearly...he took it as a personal insult.

Um... And that was the attitude that was taken by everybody, really.

Lewis still claimed that he had given the money to the charity,

via a £600 postal order and by putting cash into a collection box.

Police confirmed that neither the charity nor the Royal Mail

had any record of that postal order,

but it was impossible to prove

whether or not Lewis had donated any cash.

It doesn't get much lower than what this male actually did,

you know, as far as I'm concerned,

I can't use the words I would like to use for him on camera.

It was only when he eventually appeared before the Crown Court

to plead guilty

that he finally acknowledged that he was actually guilty of fraud.

Although police believe over 100 people were conned

and hundreds of pounds went missing,

the prosecution focused on three of these cases

where the witness had particularly strong recollections

of their dealings with Lewis.

In October 2011, following his guilty plea at Crown Court,

he received a custodial sentence of ten months.

Martin's act was clearly astute,

but his view of what he did is more modest.

I don't think it's heroic I would hope every member of the public

would do the same thing if they had the same suspicions.

Had Martin not acted as he did

and followed Lewis on the night in question,

we may not have been able to prove what he was up to.

Martin's involvement was a crucial factor in the case.

With Lewis brought to justice, the people of North Wales

can rest easy that at least one doorstep conman is off the streets.

The advice police give on how to avoid this type of scam is clear.

If people become suspicious of this type of person,

they can carry background checks, even ask this person, whoever's collecting,

to come back another time once they've made the necessary enquiries

to see if this person's actually registered with a charity,

which they can do by various means - website, telephone, etc.

If you're not happy to give, don't give to that charity and report it to the police.

We will strive to gather evidence against these individuals,

and, if the evidence is there,

these people will be taken to court and will be punished appropriately.

Fantastic work, what a great result!

Now before we go, just enough time to read you this email from David Griffin.

He's from a Neighbourhood Watch group based in Nottinghamshire.

He says, "Crime cannot flourish in a community that cares,

"so to be neighbourly and to prevent crime and the fear of crime,

"start a Neighbourhood Watch scheme to look after yourselves -

"it's so simple to do." Great advice, so thanks, David.

We're here to fight back against doorstep criminals

and we'd love to hear more about how you've caught them out.

Our details are on the website.

Be sure to get in touch if you've got a story of your own.

That's just about it.

I hope you'll join us again next time. Bye-bye.

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