Scots fraudster who fleeced Army veteran and businessman out £200k is jailed

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A callous fraudster who conned an Army veteran and a company boss out of £200,000 has been jailed for three years.Agnes Hewitt, 63, spun a web of lies which saw former soldier George Ross and businessman Michael Dooley hand over huge sums of cash.Heartless Hewitt posed as a legal expert who told Ross she could handle his employment dispute with the Royal British Legion after he was removed from his role at the charity around 2011.She demanded payment for lawyers and sent fake paperwork before telling him the case had settled for £501,000.

No money arrived and Ross began suffering serious health issues before he died in June 2019.Hewitt had called demanding a payment for £10,000 as he lay seriously ill in hospital and his family alerted police who discovered she had taken a total of £52,684.Investigators also discovered Hewitt had fleeced Dooley and his wife Clare for almost £140,000 during a dispute with another director at their firm, Strathkelvin Instruments Ltd.Hewitt, of Bellshill, Lanarkshire, denied all wrongdoing and went on trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court where she was convicted of obtaining £192,649 by fraud between January 2012 and December 2018.Sheriff Linda Nicolson today(THURS) blasted Hewitt for her 'parasitic' conduct and said there was no alternative to prison.The trial heard a statement Ross, of Dalkeith, Midlothian, had given to police where he said: "She told me my case had been successful and had been awarded £501,000 and in 2014, I asked how long it would be for me to get it and she said seven or eight years and would only give enough information to keep me satisfied."She said the British Legion had refused to pay and she would need more money to cover that."Get the latest news sent straight to your