Jail for city conman who offered fake chauffeur jobs
A SHEFFIELD conman raked in more than £100,000 through a series of scams – including a nationwide con offering fake jobs to would-be chauffeurs.
Mark Shortland, aged 43, was jailed for three years after ripping off girlfriends and students and preying on unemployed people seeking work.
Detectives said after the case that the Walter Mitty-style fantasist tricked his female victims into believing he was a former commercial airline pilot.
Det Con Juliet Faram said: "He was very convincing – always smartly dressed in suits, shirts and ties, wore a big flash watch and was tanned. He was very plausible.
"He was caught out when a Sheffield victim came to the police to say he thought he had been scammed.
"It snowballed for Shortland from there – the more we looked at him the more we discovered about what he had been getting up to. We believe he may have made over 100,000."
Sheffield Crown Court was told Shortland placed adverts on the Jobcentre Plus website advertising for drivers for all over the country.
He carried out interviews in Liverpool, Manchester, Luton and the East Midlands and offered jobs to around 100 people – asking them for a 100 deposit for the keys to the cars he claimed they would get. Around 30 paid the money but the jobs never materialised.
Recorder of Sheffield Judge Alan Goldsack QC described the scam as "wicked" and said many of those offered jobs had been "completely taken in" by the conman. "There were no jobs. Many of these people had been unemployed for a long time and pinned their future on that job," said the judge
"Others handed in their notices on their existing jobs believing they had a new job. You have shown not one hint of remorse."
The serial fraudster also made money by advertising items for sale on the eBay internet auction site.
He received cash for goods from people all over the country but never sent them any items.
Shortland, who was living at Moss House Court, Mosborough, when he was arrested, also made money from a Sheffield student by pretending to be the landlord of a house he was only a tenant in.
He put a notice in the window offering a room to rent and pocketed the cash.
On another occasion he sold a girlfriend's car for 2,500 and kept the cash.
And he persuaded another girlfriend to invest in his 'chauffeuring' business by taking out the finance on a top-of-the range BMW he said they needed – which ended up costing her more than 20,000 when she tried to pull out of the deal.
But Shortland made most of his cash by telling a friend he could organise a 75,000 mortgage advance on his behalf but when the cash came through it was paid into his account and has never been seen again.
The conman claims it vanished after he buried the money in a garden – but Judge Goldsack branded the explanation "ludicrous".
Shortland admitted six thefts, three fraud offences and one count of obtaining services by deception.
Police hope to use the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize all his cash and assets before he is released from prison.
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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