A 72-year-old mechanic who scammed close friends out of thousands and used his wife’s death as part of a lie to elicit sympathy has been jailed.
Before Ipswich Crown Court for sentencing on Thursday was Ronald Bailey, of Cranley Green Road, Redlingfield, near Eye.
He had previously denied a total of 13 offences alleged to have taken place between February 2017 and December 2019.
The charges include four counts of theft of a motor vehicle and nine offences of fraud by false representation.
The court heard the fraud offences related to vehicle repairs he never carried out.
Ipswich Crown Court heard that after Bailey’s wife had died he had approached old friends asking for money for legal costs to sue the air ambulance service for making mistakes that he said had led to her death.
This was a lie and instead he pocketed the money from friends, the court was told.
One of those victims, who was a childhood friend of his late wife, then paid him £2,560 to make repairs to two cars.
He returned one of the cars months later unrepaired and the other he sold and pocketed the money.
This victim had recently lost her husband and told the court Bailey took advantage of her at a particularly vulnerable time.
Looking Bailey in the eye from the witness stand, she said: “I just can’t begin to describe the hurt and sense of betrayal that I feel right now when I think the number of times I welcomed Ron into our family home and yet all the time this ruthless man was ripping us off.
"I was stupid enough to lend him money and which to date he has not shown any intention of paying. It was very difficult to tell my children that I had fallen for his lies.
"His actions has left me untrusting of people and their probably well intentioned approaches which is very sad."
Defence barrister Steven Dyble told the court that Bailey’s life had “gone to ruin” after his wife’s death but Judge David Pugh said this was no excuse and added: “These were mean, cynical and for the victims, deeply upsetting crimes.”
Bailey was jailed for 26 months and his victims are to be paid £7,000 each.
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