The fraudster jailed for swindling a string of lonely hearts out of more than £300,000 is a serial conman and former altar boy whose first victim was the grandmother who raised him, the Mail can disclose.
Cieran McNamara, 37, fleeced Kathleen O’Sullivan out of round £60,000 after again and again retreating cash from her checking account and raiding a cloth wardrobe where she stashed cash at house.
A relative mentioned the fraudster had a ‘outstanding ability to remember lengthy numbers’ which he extensively utilized to memorise his grandmother’s credit card numbers – using them to pay for inns round the country where he lived the high life.
The grandmother took him in as a result of his McNamara’s own mother, who had well being issues, could now not regulate him.
But around the same time, the conman additionally started stealing from the Catholic church the place he was taken by Mrs O’Sullivan.
The ‘horrified’ pensioner best came upon what was happening at her beloved church in Binley, Coventry, when the priest came to visit to inform her that McNamara, one of the altar boys at the church, had been stuck serving to himself to the contents of the collection field.
Cieran McNamara, jailed for swindling a string of lonely hearts out of more than £300,000 is a serial conman, whose first victim was the grandmother who raised him
The grandmother took him in because his McNamara’s personal mother, who had health problems, may not keep watch over him. He fleeced Kathleen O’Sullivan out of around £60,000
McNamara’s despairing circle of relatives took him to the city’s Chase Avenue police station – nowadays used to hold terror suspects or those suspected of major crime – in a bid to jolt him out of his criminal techniques. But as Chester Crown Court heard this week, it sort of feels to have little effect.
A relative mentioned: ‘He was taken to the police station through his uncle who requested officers to put the concern of God in to him. They chucked him in a cell for a couple of hours in the hope it will educate him a lesson and Cieran spent that point crying his eyes out it seems that. He was handiest 14 or so at the time.
‘But it obviously didn’t paintings and we don’t have the rest to do with him nowadays.
‘Cieran was by no means violent, but he was all the time a thief, even as a boy.’
The courtroom heard McNamara used a string of false identities, posing as a barrister, corporate director and assets developer to focus on wealthy singletons online, or in luxury hotels and clubs, wining and dining them using other victims’ cash.
In overall, he fleeced four women residing from Cheshire to Hertfordshire out of £302,000 and was jailed for seven years.
Only child McNamara grew up in Coventry, where his half-Polish mother, Christine Ostrowski, nearly died giving birth to him.
A relative stated: ‘It was discovered that she had a center condition and medical doctors warned her not to have any more children, or it will value her her existence.’
The kid ended up going to stick with his grandmother Kathleen at the terrace house she shared with 2d husband Maurice in Binley, Coventry, however soon went off the rails.
‘His grandmother used to keep money in her dresser and he used to head in and take it. He’d always deny it was him that had finished it, but he had.’
Another uncle as soon as pinned McNamara up towards a wall after catching him stealing cash off his mother, the source mentioned.
Eventually two of Kathleen’s 11 kids faced McNamara and kicked him out of his grandmother’s house, the relative added.
‘He could take note her credit cards and used them to live the prime life, staying in accommodations in every single place the place. He had this ability to bear in mind the numbers and type codes and would just quote them to pay for things.
The conman went directly to pose as a Crown Prosecution Service barrister to trick a lady he shaped a dating with into letting him use her bank cards, operating up a £3,seven hundred invoice
‘He’d shuttle on the trains without a price tag and if he was ever caught he’d give his grandmother’s brother’s name and deal with to the ticket attendant.’
The source stated the family managed to get better round half of the £60,000 he stole from his grandmother but it surely is unclear whether McNamara repaid the money or whether or not the banks refunded the pensioner, who died in 2018.
The conman’s own mother died of a center attack three years previous at the age of 52 – simply months after McNamara had arrange a credit account with builder’s service provider Jewsons, operating up a £7,000 bill, and using her home as the correspondence cope with of his ‘corporate’.
The circle of relatives warned him not to dare attending her funeral, and McNamara stayed away. They haven’t spoken to him since.
A warrant was issued when McNamara – then the use of his mom’s maiden name of Griffin – later failed to wait courtroom over the Jewsons theft.
The conman went on to pose as a Crown Prosecution Service barrister to trick a woman he formed a relationship with into letting him use her bank cards, running up a £3,seven-hundred bill.
He was jailed for 28 months each offences at Warwick Crown Court in 2017.
In 2014 McNamara – beneath the name Griffin – was jailed for 15 months for a similar offence against a lady he had met via a courting web page.
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