Two men who harassed elderly people to pay extortionate fees for unnecessary building work were jailed , Thursday, 30 July.
Michael Casey, 40 (29.04.75) of Brookes Place, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire was jailed for eight years and Trevor Lee-Shield, 56 (03.11.58) of Gaydon House, Bourne Terrace, Westminster was sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years yesterday, Thursday, 30 July.
Another man will be sentenced on Tuesday, 1 September.
Casey and Lee-Shield were two members of a gang who convinced victims their homes needed renovation before bombarding them with hundreds of calls and sometimes verbally abusing them.
One of the victims – a 69-year-old man from Lewisham – paid them almost £100,000 and was on the brink of handing over the deeds to his house following months of manipulation. It was at this point that he informed police, and detectives from the London Crime Squad (LCS) began recording phone calls to the victim from a man calling himself “Tony”.
“Tony” had manipulated the victim into taking out a bank loan to pay the gang but when one of his associates went to the victim’s house to collect the cash, police were waiting and arrested him. He was later convicted.
“Tony” remained at large but detectives identified that the phone number being used to call the victim belonged to Michael Casey.
Officers identified that the same number had been used to call an address in Camden. They visited this address and found the female occupant was regularly being contacted by a “Mr Lyon”, who had conned her out of nearly £40,000.
After receiving abusive telephone calls from “Mr Lyon”, she had started recording their conversations. This was invaluable to the detectives, who sent a copy of her recording, a recording of “Tony” and an audio clip from a previous police interview with Casey to a forensics team for voice comparison analysis. Using forensic speech analysis, they were able to verify that the man parading as “Tony” and “Mr Lyon” was in fact Casey.
The victim also gave detectives a flyer given to her by an unidentified builder, and forensic analysts found the fingerprints of Michael Casey’s nephew – Johnny Casey, 22 (10.12.92) of Bradwell House, Mortimer Crescent, Camden – on it. Both victims later identified Johnny Casey as one of the builders who had worked on their homes.
The two also gave similar descriptions of another builder and later picked Lee-Shield out of an identity parade.
Detectives arrested Lee-Shield on 30 April 2014, and Johnny Casey on 8 May 2014.
After a year on the run, Michael Casey was arrested on Thursday, 8 January when he handed himself in at Wandsworth Police Station. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the victim in Camden and the victim in Lewisham on Thursday, 25 June.
On the same day, his nephew pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in relation to the Camden victim.
Trevor Lee-Shield pleaded not guilty to fraud by false representation in relation to both victims but was found guilty on Friday, 10 July.
In his victim impact statement, the Lewisham victim said: “I feel the people who did this to me are the sort of people that should be put away for a long time. I think that if police had not got involved they would not have stopped demanding money from me.”
Detective Constable Siobhan Cowlin, of the London Crime Squad, said: “The gang chose vulnerable victims and embarked on a campaign of extortion. Michael Casey was pivotal, bombarding victims with calls – first to befriend them, then to strong-arm them into paying spiralling costs.
“He convinced the victim in Lewisham to talk to him in code, using the names ‘Bravo one’ and ‘Bravo two’ so that he knew he was not speaking to police when he rang – although this didn’t work for him in the long run.
“Such was Michael Casey’s arrogance, after calling the victim to harass him for a further £11,000, he convinced the victim that he should buy him a carton of cigarettes costing £120 as a Christmas present.
“What this gang did is deplorable and I believe they would have continued to target elderly people if they were not now behind bars.”
A financial investigation is under way, with a view to seeking confiscation orders against the men.
Three others were sentenced for their part in the criminality on 29 July 2014.