Trevor Gordon’s “despicable” offending earned him a lengthy jail sentence.

At his sentencing hearing in 2013 the court was told that he sold the 88-year-old victim’s £80,000 house for £35,000 without her knowledge, and then left her a tenant in what had been her own home.

He also stripped her of her £22,000 savings. Yet the compensation paid by Gordon amounted to less than £50.

The case was brought back to court this week as the Crown Prosecution Service sought to have the defendant stripped of £11,720 in “savings” which he has accumulated in a Bank of Scotland account – money he put down to successful gambling.

'I don't have much of a life'

In testimony to the court, Gordon, 60, of Greenlands Avenue, Whitehaven, said that during the pandemic he took a second job as a cleaner. “I was off work for two months and got long Covid,” he said.

He confirmed that he did gamble but suggested the scale of this was modest, telling Judge Nicholas Barker: “I don’t do much of anything else; that’s my enjoyment. It’s my human right to be able to do something.

“I don’t smoke; I don’t drink; I don’t do drugs; and I don’t have a car. I don’t have much of a life.” Gordon said he gambled within set limits and did not “gamble blindly.”

His savings in the Bank of Scotland account were the result of “a good run on the horses,” he said. Asked about his debts – which included unpaid Council Tax arrears, and loan repayments – Gordon said he had planned to use his savings to settle those debts, making this a “Christmas present” to himself.

PROCEEDINGS: The case was heard at Carlisle Crown Court

Sean Harkin, for Gordon, said that he earned a modest £13,000 per year and needed the money he had saved to pay off his debts. Losing the money would consign Gordon to a “lifestyle of poverty,” said the lawyer.

If the £11,720 is seized, said Mr Harkin, Gordon would be insolvent, and this was not a proportionate use of the law.

But Rob Dudley, for the prosecution, said Gordon’s savings should be available to the court, given the scale of the loss sustained by the victim, who passed away in 2017, a year after the defendant came out of prison.

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He noted that Gordon only ever paid compensation of £48.74. Mr Dudley went to suggest that those funds could voluntarily be paid into the victim’s estate. The barrister pointed out also that Gordon failed to pay off his debts before the bank account was frozen in December, 2020.

Judge Barker also noted that Gordon made “no attempts” to settle his loans or a county court judgement made over his non-payment of Council Tax. The judge said he was thus not satisfied the defendant would use his savings for that purpose.

“He has shown himself to be profligate in the way he obtains loans, and cavalier in his attitude to servicing those loans and other debts,” said the judge. But Judge Barker agreed to defer making a confiscation order so Gordon has the option of signing over the cash voluntarily to the fraud victim’s estate.

The judge gave him until June 9 to make that decision. “It either goes to the state or to [the victim’s] family,” added the judge.

'She considered him family'

In 2013, Gordon was jailed for five years and nine months after he admitted 16 fraud charges.

Money seized by courts under Proceeds of Crime legislation is split between the police, the Crown Prosecution and the Home Office. Judges do not currently have the power to direct that the money is used to compensate victims, though this "gap in the law" is currently being reviewed.

After the 2013 hearing, Det Con Stephen Lee, of Cumbria Police, said "This was a despicable crime in which a vulnerable woman had her home sold from underneath her and her life savings stolen.

"She considered him family and trusted him to help her conduct her day to day chores as she became less able to do so due to restricted mobility. Gordon abused her trust and caring nature."

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