A cruel conman fleeced a blind piano tuner out of £185,000 in a fraud lasting years. Mark Stanner, 42, used a call centre company in Manchester as a front and bombarded the vulnerable victim with phone calls, text messages and e-mails, police said as he was locked up.
A spokesperson for GMP said he was also threatened. The force said in a statement: "In some instances, Stanner left the victim with as little as half an hour to pay his demands, such as asking him to pay £4,000 within an hour, and he threatened that he would come and take his property if he didn't meet the demands."
His sister Martina Turner, 43, of Sunnyside Road, Droylsden, Tameside, allowed £31,000 of the victim's money to pass through her account to mask her brother Stanner's crimes, police said. She, too, was convicted and given an 18-month suspended sentence alongside 200 hours of unpaid work. "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.