A serial conman has been jailed again after getting householders to pay for work he didn’t carry out.
Jordan Nisbet was up to his old tricks within weeks of being released from prison, Hamilton Sheriff Court heard last Friday.
Nisbet, 24, admitted seven charges of fraud involving unsuspecting customers in Wishaw and Newmains between July 19 and August 17.
He conned them out of sums ranging from £20 to £60, usually by promising to clean gutters.
Nisbet targeted householders in Wishaw’s Priory Terrace, Thornlie Gill, Eddie Boyle Close, Beltonfoot Way and Robert Street, and in Abernethyn Road and Woodside Crescent, Newmains.
Jennifer McLaren, prosecuting, said he arrived at one house with ladders and offered to clean the gutters.
He was given £26, including a tip, and provided the customer with a receipt with the name “Jim” and a mobile phone number on it.
Nisbet said he had to leave, but would return later to do the work. He didn’t come back and the phone number was invalid.
Another householder, who handed over £60, suspected that no work had been done. She challenged Nisbet who ran away.
When police caught up with him in August he replied: “It was my brother.”
Nisbet has been jailed several times for similar crimes in recent years and had been released early in June from a 20-month sentence.
Defence solicitor Stephen MacBride said his client’s partner and two children had been experiencing financial difficulties and he “embarked on this course of conduct” to help them.
Mr MacBride told the court: “This enterprise was doomed to fail because Mr Nisbet lives in Wishaw, is easily recognisable and, given his record, was an immediate suspect for the police.”
Despite his repeated offending, Nisbet now claims to have “turned the corner” and intends to become “a law-abiding member of the community” when he is eventually freed.
Sheriff Douglas Brown jailed him for 15 months, saying: “These offences seem almost identical to the others on your record".
