Bury St Edmunds police officer urges community to support pensioner conned out of £70,000 in life savings
A police officer is urging the community to help an elderly woman who was conned out of about £70,000 from her life savings by telephone scammers.
The woman, in her 80s, who lives near Bury St Edmunds, was persuaded to transfer the money, which she uses to pay for her husband’s care home bills, by the scammers who pretended to be from the fraud squad.
Police constable Daniel Witter said the pensioner has been left ‘mortified and devastated’ by the crime and is encouraging the community to rally to her aid.
An online fund-raising page has been set up to support her.
He said: “I’ve been in the job coming up to 14 years and I’ve dealt with many many scams but I’ve never in my career come across this amount of money (being stolen) from the victim before. I’m genuinely shocked.”
“I want to rally some people around. I feel that’s what we should do as a community – we should help people who are in dire straits.
“I’ve seen the impact it has had. It could be my gran or my mum, my sister or whoever. We shouldn’t take it personally but we’re only human and it does affect us with that one."
The woman began to be targeted last week and the majority of the cash was transferred. She withdrew some cash which was collected by a female courier described as ‘white, tattooed and hippy looking’.
A bank alerted the police on Tuesday.
PC Witter, based at Bury St Edmunds police station, said: “She didn’t understand someone would do that to somebody. She genuinely believed who they were.”
Contact Suffolk Police on 101 quoting reference 37/15013/20.
To donate to the crowdfunding page, visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/bury-st-edmunds-pensioner-fraud-vicitm
If you wish to support the victim another way, email daniel.witter@suffolk.pnn.police.uk