Prosecutors fail in bid to impose life sentence on serial conman who targeted vulnerable pensioners

Prosecutors have failed to persuade appeal judges to impose a life sentence on a serial conman who targeted vulnerable pensioners in their homes.

Crown lawyers wanted an order for lifelong restriction imposed on Robert Markward, 64, a criminal currently serving jail time for conning nine vulnerable pensioners.

The high court heard how the offences took place in Ayrshire between December 2022 and March 2023.

The court heard how he posed as a nurse, a handyman and an electrician to steal from and defraud his victims in their homes. He was given nine years for his crimes.

The criminal was found guilty last month of ten charges, including defrauding and stealing from people and assaulting a housing complex employee.

Judge Lady Ross said although the sums of money stolen were not great and totalled around £600, the seriousness of the crimes “cannot just be measured in pounds sterling.”

Robert Markward was jailed for nine years for the crimes. COPFS

She accused Markward of having “made a career out of crimes of dishonesty” and said he “specialised in preying on elderly people.”

Past sentences provided no obvious deterrent for Markward re-offending, the judge said, and the author of the criminal justice social work report believed it was almost certain he would offend again when released in the future.

However, lawyers for the Crown believed the nine year sentence was unduly lenient.

The told appeal judges Lord Beckett, Lord Matthews and Lord Armstrong that Lady Ross should have imposed an order for lifelong restriction for an assault on one of his victims.

Prosecutors argued that he had a pattern of committing similar offences seen across all of his convictions on “over many years” interrupted only by periods in prison.

They argued that the assault conviction showed that his offending had escalated to violence.

They argued that this “demonstrated a preparedness to injure a member of the public when thwarted in his attempt to defraud and steal” – and that the judge should have imposed an order for lifelong restriction on Markward.

Such a sentence means that people are only released from custody once the parole board are satisfied that the offender no longer poses a risk to public safety.

However, in a written judgement published by the appeal court on Friday, judges there refused to impose an OLR on Markward.

In the judgement, Lord Beckett concluded that the assault carried out on the man was not serious enough to pass strict legal tests needed to pass an order for lifelong restriction.

He wrote: “In both her sentencing remarks, and in her detailed, well-reasoned and helpful report, the judge, who saw and heard the evidence, makes it abundantly clear that she carefully considered all the information before her and applied her mind to all relevant sentencing factors.

“For crimes of this kind, the sentence was a substantial one, but it was appropriate against the background of the respondent’s history of repeated offending in this way.

“We are not persuaded that it was unduly lenient and that is sufficient to refuse the appeal.”

Speaking at the High Court in Glasgow, Lady Ross said some of the people Markward had stolen from were particularly vulnerable.

Reading a statement from the daughter of one victim, Lady Ross said the elderly woman had felt stupid and a little violated by the crime.

Lady Ross added: “She is a strong, sensible lady but this event has shaken her confidence in strangers.”

She added that Markward had committed “nasty offences”.

The court heard he posed as an electrician to gain access to an 88-year-old woman’s retirement apartment in Ayr. He then stole her purse and bank card.

On another occasion he asked to use the toilet in a 94-year-old woman’s home, having claimed to be a friend of the woman’s recently deceased neighbour.

He then disappeared, and the woman realised her purse had been taken.

After the verdict the jury heard Markward had a string of previous convictions at the High Court for similar crimes dating back to 1996.

He has accumulated a total of 38 convictions involving 106 charges dating back to the 1980s.

Some of his most recent crimes occurred at a housing complex he previously targeted more than 20 years ago.

He was jailed for defrauding elderly people in 2002, when he was sentenced to four years in prison at the High Court in Glasgow.

But while on home leave being prepared for parole he struck again.

In 2005 he was jailed for six years, having posed as a priest and a hospice worker in Ayr and Prestwick to carry out crimes of dishonesty.

He was released early on licence but within days he resumed his offending in Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Markward was jailed in 2010 for seven years after stealing from several elderly victims. He told a 75-year-old woman he was a friend of her son’s and persuaded her to give him Sunday lunch.

He then stole a purse containing £120, bank cards and bracelets belonging to her grandchildren.

Markward was released early again but was jailed for ten years in 2016, after he targeted the elderly victims in Clydebank. He was released early in 2022.

In the latest trial, the serial thief insisted that he definitely did not commit crimes against elderly people.

A charge of stealing a purse in Prestwick on 27 March was not proven.

Lawyers for Markward argued that Lady Ross made a correct assessment of the risk that their client posed to public safety.

Lord Beckett and his colleagues refused the Crown request.

He wrote: “Neither the nature of, nor the circumstances of, the offence…. persuades us, either of itself or as part of a pattern of behaviour, that it is demonstrated that we should consider that it may be that there is a likelihood that the respondent, if at liberty, will seriously endanger the lives, or physical or psychological well-being, of members of the public at large.

“This comparatively minor assault, albeit attended by some aggravating circumstances, is not sufficient.

“We are not persuaded that taking it along with the respondent’s violent encounters with the police more than 30 years ago and events in hospital in 1996 can provide a pattern of behaviour signalling endangerment to the lives, physical or psychological wellbeing of members of the public at large.

“For all of these reasons, the appeal is refused.”