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Case Studies

Impersonating A Police Officer

22nd May 2018 – Financial. 

The defendant would pray on her victims by turning up at their houses with a false police ID and pose as an undercover policewoman by claiming she was in the neighbourhood to investigate a recent spate of burglaries and was concerned about their safety and security.

Once the defendant gained access to her victims’ homes, she would steal any money she found. On the 25th June 2017, the defendant shoved an elderly and partially sighted victim in a wheelchair out of the way before stealing cash from the victim’s home. On the following day, the defendant managed to gain access to the house of a 96-year-old carer for her 103-year-old husband who had cancer.

On the pretence of checking the windows upstairs the defendant stole six envelopes containing £6,000 from a bedside cabinet next to the sleeping victim. In 2012, the defendant posed as a nurse and convinced an 86-year-old victim to hand over £3000 which she claimed was “funeral money”. In 2013, the defendant also posed as an undercover policewoman, and under the charade of an “investigation into the banks” stole £11,000 from a 68-year-old victims bank account and made the victim sign up for credit agreements for mobile phones, claiming to have planted a bug in the victim’s house in order to ensure the victims silence.

The defendant was found guilty of four counts of burglary, four counts of attempted burglary, and one of attempted robbery and jailed for a period of 9 years.