Police sergeant who duped disabled elderly relative out of home will not have jail sentence increased
An ex-police officer who stole his ‘highly vulnerable’ disabled cousin’s inheritance will not have his jail term increased.
Ex-Staffordshire constable John Gimbert, aged 65, was locked up for three-and-a-half years after he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and four counts of theft from Janette Trim, totaling £178,651.
The Solicitor General, Robert Buckland QC, referred his jail term to London’s Court of Appeal, arguing he got off far too lightly.
But while senior judges agreed it was lenient, they ruled the sentence was not so soft that it ought to be increased.
Gimbert’s cousin has learning difficulties and her IQ is in the bottom one or two per cent of the population, Lord Justice Simon told the court.
Now 65, she is assessed as highly vulnerable to financial exploitation, added the judge.
In ‘a gross abuse of trust’, Gimbert stole the inheritance Miss Trim’s father left her when he died in 2002. Her father had left his entire estate to her including a £50,000 bungalow in Stoke.
Gimbert was the executor of her father’s will and induced the victim to sign over power of attorney to him. He transferred £128,651 and used a ‘labyrinthine’ number of bank accounts to conceal what he had done.
He also induced Miss Trim to sign over the bungalow to his son, David Gimbert – who at the time was a police officer based at Staffordshire Police HQ in Stafford.
David Gimbert was also convicted of conspiracy to defraud and received a suspended jail term. When social services became suspicious in 2009, John Gimbert repaid all the money, the judge said.
Mr Jonathan Polnay, for the Solicitor General, argued that his sentence should have been much tougher.
But Ms Rachel Pennington, for Gimbert, said his punishment was just and proportionate and should not be increased. She pointed to him having repaid the money and being of ‘positive good character’, having served in the police force for 30 years.
His crimes had taken place more than a decade agoin 2003 to 2004 and he was now ‘an older man in his retirement’, with a wife and daughter with health problems.
Lord Justice Simon said: “The judge passed a sentence which did not sufficiently reflect the seriousness of the offending.” Sitting with Mrs Justice Yip and Judge Mark Lucraft QC, he described the sentence as lenient. “However, in view of the matters urged on the court by Miss Pennington, we are not persuaded the overall sentence was unduly lenient,” he concluded.
Appearing in court via video link, Gimbert, of Westwood Park Avenue, Leek, told the judges: “Thank you so much”.
