‘Dishonest developer’ tried to persuade OAP to hand over house

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A ‘dishonest developer’ from north London tried to scam an Oxford pensioner out of his house, a court heard.

Lewis McEwan, 42, conspired with a man calling himself ‘Geoffrey Simmons’ to try and persuade the homeowner, 70s, into handing over his detached 1920s property in Wytham Street as part of an illegal equity release deal.

The victim was told that his house was structurally unsound and the only way to pay for the repairs would be to sign up to the equity release scheme.

That deal would have seen him hand over the deeds to his property in exchange for an £87,500 lump sum and the right to live in the house rent-free for the rest of his life.

Prosecutor Richard Heller, for Oxfordshire County Council’s trading standards team, branded McEwan – a former car salesman who now owns a string of properties in Liverpool, London and the Home Counties – a ‘dishonest developer’.

“That’s all he is,” he told the jury.

On Thursday, jurors at Oxford Crown Court found him guilty by a majority of 11 to one of conspiracy to defraud.

During the trial, the jury heard that the conspiracy was unmasked when a set of rogue traders who were – separately – charging the homeowner for below-par or unnecessary home improvement works called Thames Valley Police. The force handed the case over to Oxfordshire Trading Standards.

The court heard that a man calling himself ‘Geoffrey Simmons’ knocked at the pensioner’s home in Wytham Street in August 2018 and said that the new block paving at the front of his home needed to be sealed and sprayed with weed killer.

The work would cost £3,000, Mr Simmons said. The OAP agreed to the price and handed over the sum in cash. The trader suggested he lie to his bank about why he needed the money, prosecutor Richard Heller said.

Another £3,500 was asked for after Mr Simmons said that more work was needed to fix the drains and the house was subsiding.

Later, the trader called the homeowner and said the work would cost more than he originally thought and suggested an equity release scheme. The pensioner was said to have found the proposal ‘tempting’.

McEwan visited the Wytham Street house a few days later, jurors were told. He was accused of telling the pensioner the work would cost a lot of money and could only be achieved through an equity release scheme. That scheme would see the homeowner part with his home in exchange for £87,500 and would be able to live in the house rent-free for the rest of his life.

Within days, McEwan was said to have sent a letter from his firm, White Star Investments (London) setting out the proposed equity release. The defendant called the alleged victim, who said he was no longer interested. ‘Mr Simmons’ was said to have called several times trying to pressurise the OAP into signing over his property and also pretended to be from Trading Standards.

Closing the prosecution case, Mr Heller questioned suggestions that McEwan visited the Wytham Street property in September 2018 after his office manager took a call from a nameless man and set up the meeting.

“The interactions of Mr McEwan are topped and tailed by the rank dishonesty that is obvious by Mr Simmons,” Mr Heller said.

“And yet what the defence want you to believe might be true is that in the middle of those events of blatant dishonesty, Mr McEwan was operating completely in a vacuum, completely unaware of the Mr Simmons, completely unaware that another gentleman had proposed exactly the same scheme to [the victim], completely unaware the same gentleman had said he would contact an equity release firm – which, I repeat, Mr McEwan has never advertised he even does – completely unaware about the pressure being applied by Mr Simmons.

“Members of the jury, that is simply not conceivable. Of course he knew about Mr Simmons. Of course he was contacted by Mr Simmons about this opportunity – ‘old guy in a decaying house, can get it off him, I reckon’. Right up his street as well, this kind of deal.”

McEwan, of Whitewebbs Lane, Enfield, was bailed to return to court on February 21. Recorder John Bate-Williams ordered the preparation of a pre-sentence report.


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