Serial conman preyed on elderly victims for decades

A serial conman posed as a student nurse, a handyman and an electrician to steal from the homes of elderly victims in Ayrshire.

Robert Markward, 64, entered the homes of nine vulnerable individuals between December 2022 and March 2023 to steal purses, cash, bank cards and bus passes.

Markward was found guilty of 10 charges, mostly related to crimes of dishonesty, at the High Court in Kilmarnock and will be sentenced next month.

After the verdict the jury heard Markward had a string of previous convictions for stealing from elderly and vulnerable people, stretching back over decades.

Some of his recent targets - who are now aged between 64 and 99 - were in sheltered housing and retirement complexes when Markward talked his way in.

The court heard he duped people by claiming to be an electrician, a student nurse and a council worker.

In one case he pretended to be a handyman called Stevie and made off with a purse containing £350.

On another occasion Markward claimed he was a friend of a 94-year-old woman's neighbour who had died.

He asked to use the toilet after she invited him in before making off with her purse.

On 24 March 2023 he entered five properties at sheltered housing complexes in Ayr.

The court heard he told one woman he was a carer for her mother and claimed to a man that he was a student nurse.

Markward later assaulted an employee who challenged him.

He also committed frauds and thefts in Prestwick.

Adam Stachura, the policy director of charity Age Scotland, said the crimes were sickening.

He said: "I think the court has done a very important job in articulating how seriously they take offences of this kind, and hopefully it becomes a deterrent for people thinking of preying on the elderly.

"It's sickening to think of the number of people caught out by this guy, and I hope they have got some satisfaction from the verdict today."

Robert Markward has accumulated a total of 38 convictions involving 106 charges since 1986.

He was jailed for defrauding elderly people in 2002, when he was sentenced to four years in prison at the High Court in Glasgow.

But while on home leave being prepared for parole he struck again.

In 2005 he was jailed for six years, having posed as a priest and a hospice worker in Ayr and Prestwick to carry out crimes of dishonesty.

He was released early on licence but within days he resumed his offending in Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Markward was jailed in 2010 for seven years after stealing from several elderly victims. He told a 75-year-old woman he was a friend of her son's and persuaded her to give him Sunday lunch.

He then stole a purse containing £120, bank cards and bracelets belonging to her grandchildren.

Markward was released early again but was jailed for 10 years in 2016, after he targeted the elderly victims in Clydebank.

The serial thief, who was released early in 2022, told the trial that the crimes against elderly people were sickening and insisted he definitely did not commit them.

A charge of stealing a purse in Prestwick on 27 March was not proven.

Markward will be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow next month.