When my bank card was declined in supermarket I discovered son had stolen our £31,000 savings

The elderly parents of a drug addict gambler discovered their son had plundered their bank accounts out of £31,000 after one of their bank cards was declined at the supermarket. Ian Riddell secretly used his dad’s bank card to make 93 transactions and raided his unsuspecting mum’s bank account to obtain an overdraft, a loan, a credit card and pay a betting firm.

Liverpool Crown Court heard on Tuesday that when interviewed by police Riddell, 48, ‘laughed and said he would lie to manipulate his mother’.

Jailing him for three years Judge David Aubrey, KC, said, “Both those victims were your own mother and father and in effect you bled their accounts dry. The offences were planned in my judgement and in part predatory and with some sophistication. They occurred over a protracted period of time.”

Oliver Saddington, prosecuting, told how the offences came to light after his mum, Jean Riddell, 73, went supermarket shopping but her card was declined. She went to her bank and found she was in un-arranged overdraft and her husband John’s account only had £160 in it. The prosecutor said he plundered his mum’s account and by the time ‘these despicable and mean offences’ came to light she was £749 overdrawn. “She is in effect now penniless,” he said.

Judge Aubrey said Riddell set up his mother’s bank account on his own phone. “Her bank account was literally in your dishonest hands. As for your father you would simply take his bank card out of the house and go to ATM machines armed with his password.`’

He added that Riddell, who has 28 previous convictions, would manipulate his mum and lie to her asking to borrow money. “You fleeced both your vulnerable parents and took all their money, bar some £870, out of both their accounts.”

The court heard that he committed the offences because of his Class A and gambling addictions. “That may in part explain your dishonest deeds but it does not begin to excuse them,” said Judge Aubrey. Riddell, of Rice Lane, Walton, had pleaded guilty to six offences of fraud by false representation between January 22 and February 13, 2024.

Mr Saddington had told the court that when Mrs Riddell had her card declined by the supermarket she contacted her daughter who told the police and investigations began. It was discovered that he had taken out a £1,000 bank loan in his mum’s name, had set up an overdraft on the same account and made deposits into his Betfred account. He had also applied for a credit card in her name but fortunately his sister managed to get that cancelled.

When Mrs Riddell confronted the defendant asking how he could sleep at night he replied, ‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t me, it was the demon of my addiction’. Mr Saddington said that £21,201 had gone from Mrs Riddell’s account and £10,345 from 76-year-old Mr Riddell’s bank.

In an impact statement Mrs Riddell’s daughter said that she had been so angry she could not stop crying. “I don’t know how he could do this. It made me feel sick inside.” She described her parents, whom the court heard have memory issues, as ‘looking lost and lonely’.  She added that the couple have since disowned him.

Mrs Riddell said in a statement how the couple only have their pension to live on and were struggling to pay their bills. She said she had worked hard all her life to save the funds which her son had stolen.

Ben Berkson, defending, said that Riddell, who has previously served six years for robbery, had committed an ‘inordinate breach of trust characterised by his selfishness’. The offences had been brought about by his relapse into chronic Class A drug abuse and his gambling habit. 

Mr Berkson said: “The combination led him to only think about himself rather than thinking about the consequences for himself and more importantly the financial and emotional consequences for his closest family. The grip of drug use can be powerful and override morals.”