A WOMAN with a previous fraud conviction is back behind bars after two further cases where she left victims out of pocket by almost £100,000.

Kirsty Sheldon, then known as Kirsty Cox, received a two-year prison sentence at Teesside Crown Court in 2014, after defrauding 42 people out of sums totalling £450,000, having claimed she could supply them with cheap iPads on the run in to Christmas.

Within weeks of the prison term being imposed she was released due to the time she had spent in custody awaiting sentence.

Read more: Newton Aycliffe iPad fraudster Kirsty Cox is free, but told to pay £37,000 in six months or go back to prison

Sheldon has appeared at Durham Crown Court in recent months in a money laundering case over funds loaned to her for a clothing supply business she set up in Newton Aycliffe and for defrauding would-be holidaymakers out of money paid up front for stays in already-booked static caravans at Haggerston Castle, Northumberland.

Sam Faulks, prosecuting, said between April and October 2017 she was loaned various sums totalling £98,725 by an associate of a business partner in Dundee, Scotland, to help her set up a clothing retail venture, My Couture Heaven, in Newton Aycliffe.

She repeatedly fobbed him off with excuses over repayment of the money and in the end the victim received only £8,002 back from Sheldon.

The 45-year-old defendant, of Defoe Crescent, Newton Aycliffe, admitted possessing criminal property, but disputed the amount involved, claiming it was only £12,000.

A Newton hearing, or trial of issue, was heard over three stages at the court in recent weeks and Judge James Adkin found against her last Friday, saying she had told, “clear lies”, in fobbing off the lender, as she knew she had insufficient funds to repay the money.

The victim, appearing by video link from Dundee, told the hearing it had, “ruined” his life, as he has been left, “seriously in debt”, having had to move out of his home due to mortgage arrears, while he has also left his job due to stress.

Mr Faulks said the fraud was in relation to payments she took for rental of holiday homes at Haggerston Castle, near Berwick, for two static caravans jointly owned with her Dundee business associate.

Over a period of three-and-a-half months in 2018 she received £4,244 in pre-payments from ten customers for rentals, which failed to materialise due to double bookings.

Several of those customers only discovered on arrival at Haggerston Castle and they then had to pay a further £2,068 for alternative rentals on the site.

One of the victims, from Penrith, in Cumbria, who was at court for the hearing, said she made the booking for her and her grandchildren from Australia for a holiday while they were staying with her on what would be their last visit.

She said Sheldon told her a variety of lies as to why she was unable to refund the original payment, including using excuses that someone was in hospital dying and then that they had been murdered.

The victim described the defendant as, “hurtful and callous”.

Natalie Horton, for Sheldon, said she set out with “good and legitimate” intentions in all cases but her thinking skills were affected by mental health difficulties and she found herself unable to fulfil what she had pledged to do.

Miss Horton said the offences were four or more years old and her client has since begun a university degree course, while running a legitimate business, in a bid to better herself.

Judge James Adkin said the money laundering fraud, particularly, was over a sustained period of time, with, in all cases, victims suffering, “anxiety and distress.”

He imposed a total prison sentence of 32 months and ordered a financial investigation of Sheldon’s means under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The court heard it will encompass the still outstanding crime proceeds compensation order from her 2014 case, with a court ‘mention’ agreed for August.

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