A FRAUDSTER who repeatedly targets the elderly and tricks them out of cash and other items has been jailed for 30 months.

Samuel Patrick Ewan Pentland’s latest victims included an 85-year-old woman with dementia and an 89-year-old man, Nicholas Rooke, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

He conned them into giving him money for work he claimed he would do or had done on their house or in their garden and in some cases persuaded them to give him loans.

But he never did any work for the victims and made off with their cash of between £10 and £280.

In two cases he also stole the ladders he asked them to lend him so he could do the work he didn’t do, said Mr Rooke.

Throughout he was on a suspended six-month prison sentence for similar offences, having been recently freed from prison on appeal, and he continued his crimes despite being caught by two members of the public, questioned by police and released on bail.

The daughter of the 85-year-old woman said in a victim personal statement: “I would like this man to understand that my mother is a wonderful woman who would give the time of day to anyone. He has taken advantage of that and totally taken her trust of people away.”

Judge Paul Worsley QC told Pentland: “Today is your day of reckoning.

“Your record is, a very unattractive one, for finding the vulnerable in society and preying on them. That is going to come to an end for some time.

“These offences are serious. The community needs protecting from people like you.”

Pentland, 27, of Selby and Brayton, and now of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to six offences of false representation, all against the elderly, and assaulting the daughter of the woman with dementia as he made his escape from the mother’s home.

He was jailed for 30 months including most of the suspended sentence and made subject to a restraining order banning him from contacting any of the victims or going into the streets where they live.

His solicitor Graham Parkin said he knew he had to change and since being remanded in August, had started rehabilitation work. He had also started rebuilding bridges with his family who had told him enough was enough.

Since 2014, Pentland has served sentences for similar offences against a 78-year-old man from whom he stole £3,400, a 78-year-old woman and a 75-year-old man, amongst others.