Are you sure?
A carer who stole the life savings of a 100-year-old woman will not have to pay the money back.
No, not some fit of sympathy from a do-gooding judge. Not
this time.
Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Crown Prosecution Service tried to recoup the money from Isaacs by forcing her to sell her house.
However, due to the recession, she no longer has any equity in her home and the CPS has withdrawn the proceedings.
Ah. Great.
Prosecutor Richard Thompson said: "Isaacs served a statement indicating her home was worth about £110,000 with a mortgage of £90,000. We sought a confiscation hearing in these circumstances.
"She was awaiting a further valuation of her property from estate agents and they valued it at £65,000.
"The result is that any confiscation hearings are pointless."
Well, no. Not really pointless, as there’s always the punitive aspect of making the thief homeless.
Isaacs will not have to repay any of the stolen money now unless her financial circumstances change and the proceedings could be restarted against her.
One (for the CPS) to watch…
Bunny
ReplyDeleteThe other option is to send her to prison, she will be unable to pay the mortgage, default with any luck and have the house repossessed by the building society. Then she comes out of prison and has to be rehoused at er.... Right so that one doesn't save us any money, how about execution? She gets punished at minimum cost to the taxpayer.
They're trying to sell a house worth tens of thousands to pay a £100 debt ?? Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteTatty: That would be £11,294, scarcely a hundred quid or anything like. They should garnish all future earnings, legacies and prevent the house or any other goods of hers being sold or given away or left in a will. Worthless evil cunt.
ReplyDeletePut a charging order on the house, she can't sell without first paying that off. That way, even if the CPS "forget" about it, she eventually has to pay up.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I dislike the Proceeds of Crime Act... which incidentally originally targeted the drug bosses and the bullion robbers etc.
ReplyDeleteIn the old days when the law was simple and mostly worked well, a court would simply impose an order to pay compensation (and usually pursue it too). Today, far too many (most actually) crimes with a financial component are dealt with twice; once for the crime and later followed with another case to recover the 'proceeds'.
"Right so that one doesn't save us any money, how about execution? "
ReplyDeleteEven I think that's a little bit harsh for fraud, soppy wet liberal that I am...
"They should garnish all future earnings, legacies and prevent the house or any other goods of hers being sold or given away or left in a will."
Yes. The charging order mentioned by anon below would be a good idea.
"...which incidentally originally targeted the drug bosses and the bullion robbers etc."
Mission creep. We've seen it happen before.
Robert - Oops, you're right, I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteNo idea how I came to the figure of £100. Brain fart,maybe. Apologies.
I do like the idea of garnishing future earnings. She can scrub the streets of vomit and various other bodily fluids at minimum wage til every penny plus interest is paid back.
The time to get creative in "Restorative Justice" is long overdue.