A scam artist who swindled three elderly and vulnerable Illawarra women out of $17,000 when he posed as a tradesman has been jailed for more than three years.
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Darren Henry Warrilow, 31, pretended to be a solar panel repairer, from an electricity company and a maintenance man when he convinced one woman to give him her bank details after he stole her wallet, scared his victim into paying for a fake bill and pressured another woman into giving him money for dodgy work last year.
Judge Andrew Haesler sentenced the Wollongong conman to three years and six months in prison with a non-parole period of two years and one month when Warrilow appeared in Wollongong District Court on Thursday.
Judge Haesler said Warrilow's crimes "involved planning, they were deliberate, there was some deviousness, cunning and guile shown".
"He wanted money and the victims were targetted because of their age and their gullibility," he said.
"The offences occurred in their homes. The amounts must have been important to each of the victims.
"The offences involved persistence and abused the good will and exploited elderly members of our community."
Documents tendered to court said his first victim was 87-year-old Gladys Edwards who opened her Central Avenue, Oak Flats front door to find Warrilow asking to fix solar panels to make them safer on February 9.
An unsuspecting Ms Edwards invited Warrilow into her home to sit down before he told her the panels needed cleaning, that he would need to cut the main power off and change the fuse, all for $380.
When Ms Edwards declined, Warrilow became impatient and frustrated as the elderly woman called her son to verify the information.
While she was out of the room, Warrilow went into her bag and stole her wallet before running out of the home.
A short time later, he called Ms Edwards pretending to be from her bank. He requested her pin and account number as he told her someone was using her credit card to access an ATM.
Once Ms Edwards realised her purse was missing, she gave Warrilow the pin number believing the call was genuine.
When she went to the bank the following day she discovered her account had been drained of $4000 in separate transactions.
Police started investigating the theft and seized CCTV of Warrilow withdrawing the money.
A few days later on February 11, Warrilow knocked on the front door of another elderly woman's house before he told the 94-year-old with dementia that she need to pay for an electricity bill or her power would be cut off.
She was frightened so she wrote a cheque for $1850 and another for $8500.
Warrilow went to the bank to cash the $1850 cheque but when a teller disputed it he explained he was dealing with a "nightmare customer" who was "old" and that was why she signed the back.
The signature was confirmed and the cheque was paid out. The next day, Warrrilow successfully cashed the $8500 cheque.
Meanwhile, the elderly victim told her daughter about the incident and police were called.
On the same day, February 12, Warrilow and a male friend went to an 81-year-old woman's Mount Kembla home where he handed her a flyer and asked if she would like her gutters to be cleaned for $50.
The woman's gutters did not require cleaning as her neighbour regularly carried out maintenance on her property, however the woman did not realise and allowed Warrilow to start work before he also hosed her driveway.
Warrilow kept raising the price of the work before he asked her to give him a cheque for $3200, which she did.
However, Warrilow returned to the woman's home and complained the bank would not honour the cheque so her neighbour drove the woman, who had dementia, to the bank to withdraw cash.
The neighbours grew suspicious so their called their son, a serving police officer, who advised not to hand over any money.
The 81-year-old gave Warrilow the cash as he was frustrated and impatient after they returned from the bank.
The police officer put out an alert for the car Warrilow and his friend had left in.
The vehicle was stopped on the M1 Motorway and Warrilow was found with $3100 and his friend had $100.
Warrilow was allowed to leave but was arrested on February 20 before he was taken to the police station and charged.
He pleaded guilty to stealing from a property, obtaining financial advantage by deception and aggravated enter with intent to commit a serious indictable offence.
In court on Thursday, Judge Haesler noted Warrilow had a criminal record for driving and drug offences and had previously served a custodial sentence for similar scams against other victims.
In evidence, Warrilow said he moved from Wilberforce to Wollongong after taking drugs again and wanted to make money quickly.
The court heard Warrilow had yet to seek proper treatment for long-standing drug and alcohol problems.
However since being in custody he was on a drug dependency program and had spoken to a psychiatrist about his childhood trauma and post traumatic stress disorder, adding he felt "stable for once in my life" and now felt "like a different person".
Warrilow said upon his release that he wanted to reconnect with his partner, keep seeing a psychologist and attend a drug rehabilitation program.
In a letter to the court Warrilow offered an apology to his victims and said he was "disgusted" with himself.
Judge Haesler refused to let Warrilow serve his sentence in the community as his "history of failure" to change his life gave the judge no confidence he would do it now.
Warrilow's sentence was backdated to his arrest and he will be eligible for release to parole in March 2022.
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