A UK man has been jailed for draining tens of thousands of pounds from his father’s bank accounts by faking both his voice and that of his dead mother, during phone calls with bank staff.
A complex police investigation found that during a 14-month period in 2017 and 2018, just months after his mother had passed away, 42-year-old Daniel Cuthbert defrauded his grieving father of more than £56,000 ($70,000) by phoning his parents’ bank and posing as both his father and his late mother. Audio footage released by Northamptonshire Police revealed how Cuthbert faked his dead mother’s name on at least nine occasions. He can be heard correctly answering a number of security questions before requesting that a sum of money be transferred from his parents’ account into another account. Cuthbert took all of his father’s savings, including his redundancy pau-out, and also took several loans in his name.
Photo: David Hahn/Unsplash
“This was a really despicable abuse of trust by this man who falsely represented his father and even his late mother, in order to defraud them out of more than £56,000,” Sgt Mike Rogers, from the Force’s Volume Crime Team, said.
According to prosecutors, Daniel Cuthbert’s father noticed some suspicious activity when checking his bank account and confronted the fraudster about it, but he was persuaded that Daniel had nothing to do with it. However, the poor man would soon learn that trusting his son had been a very bad decision. In 2018, a building company called Mr. Cuthbert to inform him that he was going to lose his house due to arrears. Apparently, his son had taken several loans in his name and never bothered to pay them or at least inform his father about them.
In face of overwhelming audio evidence against him, Daniel Cuthbert admitted to fraud by false representation and a Preston Crown Court judge recently sentenced him to two years in jail.
“We hope this brings some closure to the victim who was put through a horrendous ordeal by his son only months after losing his wife,” a Northamptonshire Police source said.
