Hartlepool fraudster conned tens of thousands of pounds out of latest victim

Scott Thomas Hanson, 38, was initially jailed for 30 months in October 2019 after fleecing a 92-year-old churchgoer out of £27,000 in what a judge labelled “a mean offence”.

By January of last year, Hanson, formerly of Tempest Road, Hartlepool, was out of jail and beginning to trick his next victim.

Durham Crown Court was told how he befriended the man at a homeless charity in the Durham area.

Hanson was eventually able to borrow a sum of money, said to be between £50,000 and £63,000, on the pretext that the sum was a loan and would be paid back.

Police were eventually alerted after the sum was not repaid and he admitted one count of committing fraud between January and June of last year when he appeared before magistrates in Newton Aycliffe earlier this year.

The case was transferred to Durham Crown Court for sentence and Hanson, now of no fixed address, was locked up for 32 months.

An additional restraining order forbids him from contacting his latest victim for life.

In the earlier case, Carlisle Crown Court heard how Hanson gained the Cumbrian churchgoer’s trust in 2018 before eventually asking for money on an almost daily basis.

Hanson, who said he was homeless after the collapse of his marriage, claimed he needed the money for a deposit on a flat, furnishings and even funeral expenses.

The Carlisle court was also told that he was a regular customer at Coral bookmakers in Hartlepool and had lost more than £7,000 over a two-month period.

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