Thief ‘exploited elderly victims’

Ordering 39-year-old Brian Paul Ward to serve half the sentences in jail and half on licence, the Recorder of Belfast Judge Stephen Fowler QC described his crimes as “despicable, cowardly and mean offences”.

The Belfast Crown Court Judge, sitting in Antrim, said while he accepted Ward had not set out to deliberately target the elderly and vulnerable, when an opportunity presented itself during his modus operandi of “cold calling” at houses, “he would exploit each and every opportunity to steal and cheat people”.

At an earlier hearing Ward, with an address at Mill Race in Belfast, had entered guilty pleas to charges of theft and burglary arising from incidents on December 3 2020 and March 31 2021.

Taking the incidents in chronological order, Judge Fowler outlined how Ward called at the home of an 83-year-old lady claiming he was “there about the roof”.

Coincidentally, the lady had made arrangements to get a roof leak fixed so assumed the defendant was that person, brought him inside and took him upstairs to show him the stained chimney breast.

Ward told her it would cost £100 to fix and when he saw her take that amount from a drawer containing a total of £700, he asked for a further £100.

“She refused, put the rest of the money back into the drawer and went downstairs, believing the defendant was behind her,” said the judge but he added that instead, Ward was taking the cash and the pensioner discovered the theft after he left.

Turning to the latter incident Judge Fowler said that Ward went to the Newtownabbey home of a 96-year-old lady claiming he believed she “had a leak” and that he was “from the council”.

“By chance, she did have a faulty boiler and thought he was there to fix it,” said the judge, who continued that having “tricked his way into her home,” Ward went upstairs.

The elderly lady was concerned about the length of time he was taking so using her stairlift, she went upstairs to check and on seeing Ward “coming out of a bedroom, she told him her daughter was on her way”.

Ward, however, “pushed past this elderly lady, almost knocking her out of her stairlift” and stealing her purse, he left her unhurt but “shaken” by the incident.

He was arrested for that incident when forensics were able to extract his DNA profile from a baseball cap he left behind, while in the earlier incident, police seized CCTV from other properties and the victim was able to identify him from his Facebook profile picture.