Mother-of-two fraudster in £2m lie 'left home wrecked'

Mother-of-two Bethany Pole produced a bank statement claiming she had almost £2 million of savings in order to buy a £250,000 detached house in Kingswinford.

But Wolverhampton Crown Court heard it was an elaborate lie, leaving the owner of the property facing serious financial difficulties.

Pole had been allowed to rent the house for three months while she said she was waiting for funds to clear, during which time she caused around £10,000 worth of damage to the property.

The 22-year-old's con started in August 2012 when she visited an estate agents and told staff she wanted to buy the house in Moss Grove.

Mr Edward Soulsby, prosecuting, told the court: "The owner had lived in the house and had done it up to sell.

"The defendant offered £250,000, which was accepted, but she told him she was unable to commence the transaction because she was waiting to gain access to funds she had inherited. A verbal agreement was made in which she agreed to pay £900 per month in rent, but her cheque bounced. When the estate agents asked to provide evidence of her money she produced a statement showing there was £565,000 in her bank. By this time she had already moved into the property. She then produced another bank statement declaring a balance of nearly £2 million."

The court heard Pole was asked to leave the property when estate agents began to suspect she had no money.

"She continued to use delaying tactics to explain why she couldn't pay," continued Mr Soulsby.

"Her baby was ill, her cheque had been lost in the post and so on. But it eventually emerged she had misled everyone all along." It later emerged that a number of items were destroyed during her tenure in the house, amounting to an estimated £10,000 worth of damage. The court was told the house was eventually repossessed by the bank and sold on for £262,000 after the owner was unable to pay the mortgage.

Mr Gurdeep Singh Garcha, defending, said:

"She is a young woman who presented herself to solicitors and estate agents in what was plainly a Walter Mitty type situation."

Pole, of Old High Street, Quarry Bank, pleaded guilty to fraud by representation and making an article for the use of fraud. Pole was sentenced to a three-year community order with supervision by Judge Martin Walsh.