An agent has escaped jail after operating a lettings scam.
Andrew Boyne, who worked for a Martin & Co franchise in Exeter, pretended to let out vacant homes which were up for sale.
He demanded holding fees and advance rent for the properties, which he advertised on Gumtree.
He conned up to £850 from each of 13 victims. He then stopped taking their calls on his mobile phone, leaving no means for them to contact him.
One family were left homeless after they paid a deposit, gave notice on their own rented accommodation, and then found what they thought would be their new home was not available.
The couple and their newborn baby had to be given emergency accommodation by Exeter City Council.
Boyne, who had a gambling addiction, came up with the scam to pay both for his addiction and service debts owned to illegal money lenders, Exeter Crown Court heard.
Boyne received a 20-month suspended jail sentence and ordered to do 250 hours unpaid work, and to pay £5,000 compensation.
Judge Erik Salomonsen told him: “These were financial crimes, but they were not victimless crimes. You have come within a whisker of going to prison.”
Defending, Mr Lee Bremridge said Boyne had got into financial difficulties as a result of losing his previous well paid job as an estate agent as a result of being accused of rape, for which he was found not guilty by a jury.
Mr Bremridge said he became depressed while on bail for two years awaiting his trial and started gambling
After the sentencing, Chris Perring, managing director at Martin & Co in Exeter, said Boyne had been brought to justice due to co-operation between local estate agents who deplored his actions.
He also thanked detectives who worked on the case.
http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/crooked-estate-agent-spared-jail-725688
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/local-news/crooked-estate-agent-who-now-729551
What’s the point of prisons if no one is going to be sent there?
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Of course we don’t know the whole circumstances – only the juicier bits that the press decided to publish – in respect of either the crime; the trial or the verdict… but surely it beggars belief for the average person reading this that this man is still walking free.
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Really… suspended?!!!
So, the majority play by the rules, the minority break them and our Justice system keeps spinning the wheel.
How many chances for the Guilty party, how much suffering for the victims of his crimes.
Gambling addiction or not he committed crime in a calculated way and knowingly left victims.
It’s laughable… well at least he is laughing, slithering away with a suspended sentence!!!
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