Conmen targeted frail 98-year-old demanding cash for work they falsely claimed to have done

Crimea and Michael Price targeted the frail pensioner who lived with her dementia stricken brother-law in. Along with another man, John McDonald, the Price brothers arrived on the quiet cul-de-sac in a four wheel drive truck.

After trying several doors, McDonald, who has since gone on the run, and Michael Price knocked on the door of a 98-year-old woman.

They told their victim they had carried out work to her neighbour's gutter for £800. Claiming to have also cleaned her gutters and repaired a tile, they demanded she pay them £300. Car salesman Michael Price, 21, of Willenhall Lane, Walsall, and father-of-two Crimea Price, 33, of Long Lane, Great Wyrley, pleaded guilty to fraud at Birmingham Crown Court.

Crimea Price, it was heard, had received a suspended sentence in 2012 for an almost identical offence. He was jailed for 14 months.

Younger brother Michael, previously of good character, was jailed for 47 weeks, suspended for two years. Recorder Miles Watkins told the pair: "You, together with Mr McDonald, absent from the dock where he rightly should be, went with the intention to obtain money you had not undertaken.

"In Blakesley Close you went to a number of properties, in particular the property in which the victim lived, she was 98 and lived there with her 95-year-old brother-in-law.

It was said to the victim work had been done on her guttering and roof. That was clearly a lie."

Mr Bernard Linnemann, prosecuting, told the court another neighbour in Sutton Coldfield, whose door had been knocked by the group, phoned police, suspicious of their behaviour. Officers from West Midlands Police arrived while McDonald and Michael Price were still in the victim's home.

Just then as police arrived Michael Price attempted to escape by climbing over a fence. He was arrested in a nearby street shortly after.

Crimea Price was arrested from inside the pick-up truck which had been blocked in by a police car. Recorder Watkins said: "

The sums of money are modest bit when considering the impact I have to look at the vulnerability of your victim."