A CONMAN was caught trying to pull off a £5000 heist at a bank after making a series of blunders.
Detectives had no trouble catching Liam Kinghorn after he wrote down his own name for bank staff and gave them a date of birth.
He also used the bank's chained pen to write down his details and left fingerprints on it and on the cheque he tried to
cash.
Kinghorn also made it easy for staff to identify him by having one of his eyebrows distinctively shaved and was captured for several minutes on CCTV.
The fraudster also drew attention to himself by twitching nervously and mumbling to bank staff.
Kinghorn, 22, of Easter Drylaw Avenue, Edinburgh, was found guilty at Perth Sheriff Court today of possession of a fraudulent cheque on March 20 last year.
He was also found guilty of trying to obtain £5000 from the HBoS bank in Kinross by trying to pass off as genuine a cheque in the name of RGD Bruce.
Banking officer Jill Wilson, 37, said: "He just seemed out of place. He asked to pay a cheque in for quite a large amount.
"He had a scrap of paper with the account details on it. I didn't feel he was fully focused on the task at hand.
"He didn't seem as focused as he could have been. He just gave me very evasive answers. I asked where he worked and he said 'around'.
"I asked what he did for a job and he said 'this and that'. He couldn't provide me with a straight answer to anything I asked him.
"I asked him to write down his name and he wrote Liam and a surname that I couldn't read. I asked for his date of birth and postcode.
"I could see he was getting quite edgy. I asked him to sit and wait and he did for a while then he got up and left.
"Half an hour later another gentleman came in and tried to make a deposit with another fraudulent cheque. We felt concerned for our safety so we shut the branch down and called 999."
A study of the bank's CCTV tapes clearly showed Kinghorn trying to cash the cheque. Scenes of crime officers found his fingerprints on the cheque and on the bank pen.
Former customer service advisor Josephine Paterson, 60, said: "There was something unusual about one of his eyebrows. It was shaved or marked."
Finding Kinghorn guilty, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said: "There's nothing for me to really call into question. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt you are guilty."
Solicitor Colm Dempsey, defending, said: "These are serious offences involving a large amount of money, but there was no material gain to the accused."
He said Kinghorn had a heroin problem and had been placed on a drug treatment and testing order at Edinburgh Sheriff Court four months before the bank deception took place. Sentence was deferred until next month.
A second man – Munyaradzi Matiyena, 33, of Luton – was initially charged with trying to pass off as genuine a cheque for £9200 at the same bank on the same day.
Fiscal depute John Malpass said the case against Matiyena had been dropped because he had since been jailed for five years for offences in England.
The full article contains 554 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
