February 01, 2010

Charming conman targeted elderly victims

By David Clarkson

Conman Lachlan Patrick Irvine — described as plausible and charming — has admitted 35 charges including impersonating a police officer and ripping off the elderly clients on his meal delivery route.

Irvine has turned 30 while in custody on remand since his arrest in October, and Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen Erber again remanded him in custody after his guilty pleas today.

He is to be sentenced in a crown session on April 30 with the judge calling for a presentencing report and a report on his ability to pay reparations totalling $52,349 back to his victims.

Defence counsel Shannon-Leigh Litt said some of the reparation claims were disputed and there may need to be a hearing on the issue before the sentencing.

Irvine admitted eight charges of theft, five burglaries, three aggravated assaults, eight charges of dishonestly using documents, seven of dishonestly obtaining documents, one of impersonating a policeman, one of possessing the class A drug LSD, and two of causing damage to try to obtain property.

He was employed by a meal delivery service in Christchurch from January to April 2009, involving taking meals to elderly clients and collecting payments.

He later went to several of the addresses on his route, introduced himself as a police officer investigating the illegal use of the elderly victims’ bank cards, and then took cards and identification numbers.

He sometimes stole cash from houses and took money from the tills at Timewarp Antiques in Manchester Street and from Penny Lane Records.

At both shops, woman shop assistants tried to bar his way as he left but were pushed aside before he fled.

Before the record shop cash snatch he approached the sole shop assistant and reserved a compact disc using his own name. He got away from the shop with $1240 which has never been recovered.

He went to several service stations and tried to buy gift vouchers. He would then ask for another item, such as tobacco, and then snatch the vouchers and run from the shop.

He broke into the offices of a former parking employer, raided the till, and a safe, and took a set of keys for the pay and display parking machines. He broke a window in a company car to try to find more keys.

Police have detailed how he visited former elderly clients, chatting and sometimes having coffee with them, before stealing cheques, snatching bank cards, and using their PIN numbers.

Sometimes clients handed over cards and PIN numbers when he said he was a police officer. He got thousands of dollars in withdrawals at automatic teller machines.

Once he phoned saying he was a Telecom technician and got the occupant to unplug all her phones. He then arrived pretending to be a bank manager and convinced the woman to provide her bank card and identification number.

When the woman went out for a coffee he burgled the house. He was confronted by the woman’s daughter who could not call the police because all the phones had been unplugged. Irvine had stolen jewellery.

He raided staff lockers and a bar at two central city hotels. He punched one cleaner in the head to get away.

When the police closed in, his partner handed over three small wraps of tinfoil containing the drug LSD. Irvine admitted they were his.

When Irvine was arrested, police described him as plausible and charming.