Fraudster who tricked grieving relatives jailed

Steven Drinkwater was jailed for 20 months

A funeral worker who went on the run after defrauding grieving relatives out of more than £9,000 has been jailed for almost two years.

Steven Drinkwater, 47, from Ottery St Mary in Devon, pleaded guilty to eight counts of fraud by false representation.

Victims included a mother with a stillborn daughter, bereaved spouses and other parents who had lost children, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Drinkwater was jailed on Wednesday for 20 months at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

The 47-year-old had taken money from people arranging funerals and headstones in Wolverhampton between 2013 and 2015, the CPS said.

The defendant would insist on cash payments for funeral services or headstones before keeping either some or all of the money paid to him.

One victim spent £3,400 on a funeral plan for himself and his wife before finding the funds were never received by the company.

Another spent months waiting for their loved one's headstone.

After being confronted by his employer in 2015, he was said by the CPS to have left the business and never returned.

The other member of staff overheard him accepting a sale, taking cash and only handed over nearly £1,000 from a pocket when the colleague pushed him about the sale, police said.

Drinkwater then put on his coat, left and never returned.

'Drinkwater callously targeted grieving families'

In the following months, when the funeral directors called customers to settle balances, detectives said they were told they had already done so with Drinkwater.

In some cases he forged customer's signatures.

It took police until January to track him down after a tip-off and he was arrested in Devon.

Drinkwater, who had two previous convictions for 11 offences, was interviewed by police and answered no comment to virtually every question asked, prosecutors said.

Det Sgt Isobel Griffiths said: “This was an awful crime in which Drinkwater callously targeted grieving families when they were at their most vulnerable.

“The company that Drinkwater worked for are also victims in this. They trusted him to take care of these grieving families and instead he took advantage. The company honoured all sales that Drinkwater dealt with to ensure no family was at a loss."