A conman who scammed dozens of unsuspecting families by selling bogus funeral plans has admitted pretending to be a nurse during the Covid pandemic.
Barry Fisher, 40, made out he was a qualified nurse in the Lanarkshire area. It happened weeks after he was arrested and charged over the funeral scam in Fife.
Fisher admitted 'with intent to deceive' falsely representing himself as being a registered nurse in January last year. Fisher, of Edinburgh, appeared from custody and pled guilty to breaching the Nursing and Midwifery Act at Hamilton Sheriff Court.
He was admonished and dismissed by Sheriff Ross Macfarlane KC. Claims he provided false references and applied for a nursing job were deleted by prosecutors.
Earlier this year Fisher, who also goes by the name Barry Stevenson-Hamilton, was caged for 33 months at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for the funeral scam that netted him £130,027. He defrauded a total of 49 clients across the Fife area.
Callous Fisher targeted elderly and vulnerable customers who spent thousands on the plans at Stevenson Funeral Directors between January 2016 and September 2019. He was confronted by concerned staff but rather than confess he callously told them customers were deceased while discarding incriminating documents from a folder in a shredding bin.
Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane said 'nothing short' of a custodial sentence would be satisfactory.
She added: "There are a number of aggravating factors in this case and one of these is the significant planning that must have gone into this, the number of complainers involved, their age and their vulnerability."
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