Cheshire man jailed for defrauding blind piano tuner out of almost two hundred thousand pounds

A fraudster from Macclesfield has been jailed for conning a blind piano tuner out of a hundred and eighty five thousand pounds after a four year scam.

Mark Stanner, who is 42 and of of Brocklehurst Avenue in Macclesfield, used a call centre company in Manchester as a front to bombard the victim, a man in his 50s, with phone calls, texts and emails.

The victim was told that he owed money to various publication companies for adverts that had been placed in numerous publications to advertise his trade as a piano tuner.

To begin with the financial demands were small, dating back to 2017.

The victim paid the initial demands, requesting that Stanner would leave him alone if he paid. As time went on, these demands progressively got more and more aggressive and frequent.

The victim had to borrow money from friends and family as he needed to purchase braille software to read a string of invoices that Stanner had falsely created.

In some instances, Stanner left the victim with as little as half an hour to pay his demands such as asking him to pay £4000 within an hour and threatened that he would come and take his property if he didn’t meet the demands.

Officers investigating the scam discovered that Stanner was using the money to fund his gambling habit.

Alongside Stanner 41-year-old Marvin Scott of Charlestown Road, Manchester was jailed for 31 months after he allowed £48,000 from the company to move through his bank accounts to conceal the finances for Stanner.

Stanner's sister, Martina Turner, who is 43 and of Sunnyside Road in Droylsden was also sentenced, being given an 18 months suspended sentence and ordered by undertake 200 hours of unpaid work after she was found to have £31,000 of the victim’s money to go through her account to mask her brother, Stanner’s crimes.

Detective Constable Michelle Wilkinson, of GMP’s Economic Crime Team, said: “Stanner has shown no remorse throughout our investigation and has actively sought to conceal his finances by enlisting the help of Turner and Scott who kept money in their accounts for Stanner.

“Sadly, this case demonstrates how easy it is for people to fall victim to fraudsters, especially when they are convincing. The victim was vulnerable, and Stanner took advantage of this. I hope he spends his time in jail thinking about the consequences of his actions.

“We would like to use this opportunity to ensure that we are providing crime prevention advice to individuals across Greater Manchester, we want to equip our communities with advice on how to reduce your chances of falling victim to fraud.

"Look out for unexpected contact from unknown companies asking for your money, the likelihood is that this is fraudulent.

"With cases like this, it is common there is no written invoice prior to the payment just a demand for money with little to no explanation of why they need to be paid.

"Fraudsters will often say that the payment is urgent and will accompany the demand for money with immediate threats of bailiffs and debt collectors, putting pressure on victim's to part with their money.