Churchman Jailed for Stealing Dementia Sufferer's ?61,000 Life Savings to Spend on Gambling Sprees and His Daughter's Wedding
By Hugo Gye
A Catholic deacon has been jailed after cheating an elderly dementia sufferer out of his life savings and spending the money on gambling and his daughter's wedding. Peter Hesketh persuaded widower Peter Court to sign over power of attorney to him and claimed to be investing in lucrative business deals. But instead he took more than ?60,000 from the vulnerable pensioner to pay for his own mortgage - later telling police that the money had been given to him in return for managing Mr Court's finances. Hesketh, 65, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after being found guilty of theft at Worcester Crown Court. The deacon from Our Lady & St Pius X Roman Catholic church in Kidderminster met Mr Court while visiting the pub where he was a landlord before falling ill. The pensioner granted the priest power of attorney over his finances after Hesketh promised he would put it into risk-free business ventures. Instead, he took ?61,429 and used it to bet on horse racing and pay off the mortgage on his ?255,000 house in Kidderminster. He even spent ?20,000 of Mr Court's life savings to pay for a venue for his daughter's wedding.
Andrea Hesketh and her new husband Carl Berisford-Murray invited more than 100 guests to a lavish reception at a Kidderminster hotel. After the victim died in 2007 aged 75, his family discovered that thousands of pounds were missing from his account. Hesketh - who was so trusted by Mr Court that he even officiated at his funeral - was arrested the next year. He claimed that the pensioner had paid him ?20,000 a year to manage his finances, which were 'a pig's bloody breakfast'. But judge Toby Hooper dismissed Hesketh's version of events as 'preposterous', telling the defendant he had carried out a 'planned and careful series of many thefts' from a man who held him in 'high regard'. He added: 'It is tragic to note you evidently held your victim in contempt, as is evidenced by your claim that you were ministering to him in religion during the offending and by derogatory remarks that you made about him. 'But for your victim's untimely death, your offending would have continued indefinitely, or at least until you had stolen all that his accounts contained.' Prosecutor Paul Mytton told the court that the father of five, who was ordained a deacon in 1992, had been 'in control of the purse strings' and thought no one would notice the swindle. Peter Arnold, defending, said Hesketh would find jail difficult because of health problems which included epilepsy and gout.
After the case, Phillipa Charlesworth, of West Mercia Police, said: 'Hesketh was evasive and inconsistent during our dealings with him and it was clear he was not telling the truth. 'As power of attorney he should have been acting in Peter Court's best interests - instead he acted in his own. 'He has now paid a high price for that betrayal of trust by losing his liberty.' Monsignor Timothy Menezes, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, said: 'I am saddened to learn that the Reverend Mr Peter Hesketh, a married deacon of our Diocese, has been found guilty of theft and a breach of the trust that was placed in him.' Hesketh's son-in-law Mr Berisford-Murray said, 'The family are sticking by Peter,' adding: 'We did not know the wedding was being paid for in this way.'
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.