SIX members of a rogue-trader gang who preyed on vulnerable and elderly people in North Yorkshire have been jailed for a total of almost 25 years.

The largest-ever investigation carried out by North Yorkshire County Council’s trading standards and planning services department led to the downfall of the gang behind the gardening and roofing scam, including five members of the same family, the Prices from Brigg, in Humberside.

The 18-month probe discovered the gang pressurised victims across Yorkshire, as well as in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, to pay as much as £52,000 for work which was hardly ever done. Their targets included frail pensioners and dementia sufferers.

David Price, 42, was jailed for seven years and eight months by Teesside Crown Court after admitting conspiracy to defraud and money-laundering. His brother Shane, 41, was given a sentence of three years and four months for the same offences.

David Price’s wife Angelina, 40, received a 16-month sentence after pleading guilty to money-laundering charges.

The Prices’ sons Abraham, aged 20, and David, 19, were also jailed after admitting conspiracy to defraud and money-laundering, while James Frank Cunningham, 26, of Castleford, West Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to the same charges and a distraction burglary. David Price senior also admitted theft.

Trading Standards officials believed the scale of the con topped £1m and that there could be hundreds of victims – although there were only 81 on a charge sheet which amounted to £175,645.

Neil Davey QC, prosecuting, said pensioners were overcharged for simple jobs by huge amounts and that if the family found someone particularly vulnerable, they would call repeatedly.

He described the activities as a family fraud business and said they tried to charge one woman £3,200 to repair a roof tile when the real value of the work was £18 plus VAT.

“This has been a very complex and detailed investigation of a persistent and ruthless gang of organised criminals who deliberately targeted the most vulnerable members of our society,” said Coun Chris Metcalfe, the council’s executive member for trading standards.

“The investigation has revealed the full extent of the gang’s offending and the lengths these despicable offenders will go to.”

York Press: The Press - Comment

Just deserts for doorstep gang

DAVID Price and his gang developed conning vulnerable and elderly people into a fine art.

They deliberately targeted those they knew would be least able to stand up to them, cold-calling them on their doorstep then charging the earth for shoddy gardening and roofing work. The six gang members – Price, his wife Angelina, his brother Shane, his sons Abraham and David, all from Brigg near Hull, and James Cunningham from Castleford – used high-pressure tactics to force their victims to part with huge sums of money.

One 85-year-old was pressurised into handing over as much as £52,000; a woman in her 80s was defrauded of more than £23,000. The gang made repeat visits to their victims, extorting money by false claims about how much work had been done. In total, they are thought to have netted hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But now, following an 18-month investigation which North Yorkshire trading standards describe as their biggest-ever probe into doorstep crime, the six gang members have been sentenced to a total of almost 25 years in jail. They also face the prospect of having the profits of their disgusting crimes confiscated.

These thugs lived off the backs of confused, defenceless people, deliberately targeting those they thought were the most vulnerable.

Trading standards officers who investigated them deserve the highest praise. They have done us all a huge service by ensuring this despicable gang got put away. As for Price and his fellow gang members, they deserve absolutely everything they have got.