A man swindled £5,000 from older people in and around Oldham by pretending to offer a gutter cleaning service but never had any intention to carry out any work.

At Minshull Street Crown Court on Tuesday, February 20 and Wednesday, February 21, Daniel Mather appeared after previously pleading guilty to nine counts of fraud by false representation.

The court heard from prosecutor Duncan Wilcox that between June 2022 and August 2023, Mather committed the offences in areas including Chadderton, Failsworth, Oldham, Middleton and New Moston.

The court heard that the 39-year-old's offending would follow the same pattern - he would knock on the door of an older person and offer to clean their gutters, before taking money off his victims despite never having any intention to carry out the work.

In total, Mather took around £5,000 from his victims, who were aged between 64 and 85, with his most lucrative offence seeing him swindle one victim, from Oldham, out of £2,850.

He committed his first series of offences and was arrested and bailed, before he committed his second series of crimes while on bail.

After he was once again arrested and bailed, Mather, of Longfellow Crescent, Moorside, carried out his third set of offences.

Mather pleaded guilty to the nine offences in January before appearing at court this week for the two-day sentence.

David Bruce, defending, told the court that Mather was struggling with addictions to gambling and cannabis at the time of his offending and that he had a chaotic home life.

Some of Mather's crimes saw him take less than £100 from his victims, however Recorder Geoffrey Lowe said: "The financial loss is only part of the harm."

Recorder Lowe said that as Mather's crimes progressed, the sums of money he would swindle from his victims increased and that many of the victims felt "embarrassed and insecure" as a result of the crimes.

He said the victims did not trust strangers who knocked at their doors.

Recorder Lowe added that the victims were "vulnerable" due to their ages and that Mather, who had a history of identical offending, had targeted them because of how old they were.

Mather was sentenced to four years and three months in prison, at least half of which he will serve in custody before he is eligible to be released on licence.