A female con artist who helped crooks fleece disabled pensioners out of £186,000 by keeping them on the phone for hours in bank scam call plot has been jailed.
Shameless Lydia Cunningham wept in the dock as she was sentenced to almost four years behind bars for being the ringleader of the criminal racket.
The 28-year-old, operating with fellow cheat Youssef Hassan, 20, was part of a gang that deliberately targeted 26 vulnerable victims - including an 84-year-old who was caring for her son with stage four lung cancer.
The trickster, who lives in leafy street in Hampton, Richmond upon Thames, would call pensioners claiming to be from their bank before arranging to steal their savings.
Cunningham kept some of her victims on the phone for up to 12 hours while her fake 'couriers' - which included John Burgess, 27, and Hassan - turned up to collect their bank cards before draining them of cash.
