Banks! They’re Grrrrrreat!

The court heard the buyer, Kevin Tomlinson, viewed the mobile home and paid Mrs Manders £10,000 before returning with the £20,000 balance and collecting it.

She said: “I put the £10,000 in a cornflakes box, with cornflakes in the box. It stayed there until he came down with the rest of the money and took the caravan away.”

*boggle*

Of course, she wasn’t totally stupid. Once she had £30,000 in cash, that went in the safe. And then it all went a wee bit pear-shaped:

Mrs Manders told the court: “I put my hand in the safe and it felt all funny. I started to shake.

“I took the bag out and there was all this paper, cut up. I was, sort of like, traumatised for a moment.

“I said to my brother ‘It’s gone Joe’. “He said ‘no’. I tipped all the paper out and with that I collapsed.”

Hmmm….

She said only her parents, two brothers, sister and two sons knew about the safe.

Don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to crack this one, then?

Particularly when one of the suspects was arrested, bailed, and promptly skipped the country!

Judge Martin Picton told him: “All the family has been destroyed by all this.

“It’s a really cruel offence. You stole £30,000 from your own mother, from your own family.

“It was a despicable thing to do. You intended to do it and you tried to hide it. When you were on bail you told lies, got a passport, got out of the country, stayed out of the country and stayed out of the way.”

Not for long enough. Now he’s going to jail.

I bet he doesn’t go to many family parties when he gets out…