A cruel con man who defrauded an 83-year-old woman out of $9,000 of her life savings was jailed for five years at Supreme Court yesterdayi.

Margrit Winchell thought Randolph Anthony Simons was a Belco meter man after seeing him checking a neighbour?s house in Leacraft Hill Road, Southampton, in April last year.

She let Simons, who has a long list of previous convictions for dishonesty, into her home to use the bathroom, but once inside the crook stole a number of cheques.

He cashed four of the cheques for $9,000, and would have continued emptying the account, but it became overdrawn.

The court heard Mrs. Winchell was forced to leave her home and neighbourhood friends to be closer to her son for fear of being preyed upon again.

And she said in a victim impact statement that she had now ?lost her trust in her fellow man?.

Simons, 38, put Mrs. Winchell through the additional trauma of testifying in a trial when he denied theft, forgery, false utterances and acting under false pretences, but a jury found him guilty.

Jailing Simons for five years, Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons said: ?These offences were serious, and all the more egregious because the victim was a senior citizen of limited resources who in the old fashioned Bermuda way was trying to help someone going about an honest day?s work.

?No one else is responsible for your behaviour. The elderly must be made to feel safe, and victimisation of the elderly is too prevalent.

?Your record is appalling. You put the victim through a trial and did nothing to try to repay the money.?

She said although Simons, who has a heroin problem, said he wanted help for his behaviour in a non-custodial programme, there would be ?outrage? if she did not jail him.

In her victim impact statement, Mrs. Winchell said: ?Since the incident, I have lost my trust in my fellow man because I was so betrayed by the defendant.

?I let him in because I thought he wanted to use the bathroom. It is hard to be the hospitable person I once was.?

She was put under tremendous financial stress paying for bills, groceries and medication, but fortunately her bank paid back the money Simons had stolen.

Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson said Simons, who also has previous convictions for assaulting a Police Officer and armed robbery, had ?shown no remorse for the commission of these offences,? and needed to be jailed.

He had abused a position of trust because Mrs. Winchell thought he was a Belco service man.

?Considering his previous convictions, he has shown utter disregard for this court in terms of sentences in the past and an immediate custodial sentence is appropriate, because we are dealing with a particularly vulnerable group of people in society,? said Mrs. Vaucrosson.

In court before sentencing, Simons apologised for the offences and said he realised he had to address his problems.

He said he had applied to Turning Point drug treatment programme, but also needed help to identify his ?distorted thoughts and thinking?.

He said his mother recently had a stroke and his sister was in an out of St. Brendan?s psychiatric hospital, so he was the only person able to look after them.

He claimed he offered to repay the money to Mrs. Winchell but she refused and instead hoped he would get help for his problems.

In sentencing Simons, Mrs. Justice Simmons ordered him to undergo drug treatment in prison.