by Joe Jeffrey
Kimberley Montrose jailed for 16 months and ordered to work unpaid following string of holiday scams
A conniving conwoman who duped hard-up families out of thousands of pounds after advertising bogus caravan holidays in Skegness has been jailed for 16 months after pleading to nine charges of fraud.
Warwick Crown Court was told Kimberley Montrose, 25, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, began her string of con tricks after advertising a caravan for hire at Butlin’s in Skegness on Facebook, with people paying in excess of £50 per night for the caravan which did not exist.
One woman duped by Montrose paid £210 for a four-night break and was even given the key before Montrose took the key back and told her the locks had been changed.
Believing it to be a scam, the woman asked for her money back and even went so far as to attempt to book the holiday again with Butlin’s directly after borrowing the additional money required, only for Butlins to confirm the caravan did not exist.
Another woman booked the Montrose’s ‘caravan’ for a summer getaway and paid in £100 instalments before realising it was a scam and also requested a refund, which was not forthcoming, resulting in the woman and her family having no holiday.
Montrose was subsequently arrested in June 2015, insisting the caravan existed and belonged to her late grandfather, and that bookings had gone wrong due to being out of her control, but police found no evidence of the caravan ever existing.
Further victims came forward during the police investigation, including one woman who paid £264 for a five-day family holiday including passes to Butlin’s facilities. It was only when she and her family were on her way to Skegness that she was advised by Montrose there had been a problem with the paperwork and was therefore being placed in a B&B instead. Upon arrival a the B&B, the family discovered no payment had been made.
Upon being sentenced to 16 months, Montrose was also ordered to do unpaid work, with Judge Sylvia de Bertodano saying: “All this adds up to a really unpleasant set of offences, the most serious of which are the caravan offences. It didn’t exist, but you persuaded a number of people that it did, and eight people paid to rent it for family holidays.
“The amounts they paid, and the fact that they paid in instalments, gives an indication of the sort of people you were preying on – families who were struggling to get by, who had their family holidays for their children snatched away from them.”
What do you think of the sentence handed out to Montrose? A little too lenient perhaps? Let us know in the comments below.
