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Middle-class couple posed as homebuyers before moving in as squatters and refusing to payBy Andrew Levy

Last updated at 8:03 AM on 15th July 2009
Comments 39

The smartly dressed mature couple seemed every inch the affluent house hunters.


Richard and Hazel Jerome dazzled vendors with tales of their luxury lifestyle and properties in Jamaica and Barbados.

They would then make cash offers on top-end homes and, while waiting for the sale to go through, politely ask if they could temporarily rent the property as they needed to move out of their own house.

Richard and Hazel Jerome arriving at court. He was jailed for 15 months and his wife was given a ten month suspended sentence


Marion Smullen QC. She and her husband are believed to have lost £167,000 as a result of the deceit

It was only after the homeowners handed over the keys that it became clear the pair were con artists.

Rent and utility bills would go unpaid and, after a string of excuses, the houses remained technically 'sold' - and therefore unable to be re-marketed - while the Jeromes claimed squatters' rights.

The couple are known to have lived for free in two houses over a period of 18 months and police believe they may have claimed other victims.

One of the women whose house they lived in died of cancer not knowing the fate of her 'occupied' property.

Another was a top criminal barrister whose husband also died while fighting for compensation.

Richard Jerome, 62, was jailed for 15 months yesterday after admitting two charges of fraud at an earlier hearing.

He also pleaded guilty to a further fraud charge and obtaining money by deception in an unrelated incident.

His 64-year-old wife - who was working as a primary school teacher during the scam - was given a ten-month sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting two counts of fraud.

She must also observe a two-month curfew between 8.30pm and 6.30am.

Prosecutor Peter Coombe told Huntingdon Crown Court in Cambridgeshire that the Jeromes' actions were a 'charade from beginning to end'.

Their operation began in March 2006 when they made a cash offer on a £250,000 house in Bradville, Milton Keynes, belonging to Nick and Janet Jarvis.

The couples knew each other because Mrs Jerome was a £30,000-a-year teacher at the same primary school as Mrs Jarvis. The Jeromes, who have three children aged between 20 and 28, claimed their previous purchase had fallen through because the seller died of a heart attack.

They put an offer in on their friends' home and then asked to rent it until the sale completed.

It took 12 months for the Jeromes to be evicted through county court action. Mrs Jarvis, who was in her early 50s, died from cancer before she knew the fate of her home.

The next victims were Marion Smullen QC and her husband John, who were selling their £555,000 detached thatched home in Stoke Hammond, also near Milton Keynes.

The home owned by Marion Smullen and her husband which was squatted in by the Jeromes. Mr Smullen also tragically succumbed to cancer before the end of the court case against the couple


The former home of the Jarvises in Milton Keynes where the Jeromes first operated their scam

The Jeromes moved into the house on a short-term let in March 2007 and were thrown out six months later.

Mr Smullen also succumbed to cancer before the end of the court case.

The Smullens lost £167,000 as a result of the deceit, including a £55,000 deposit which was never paid, £8,400 rent, and loss of value of the home due to the credit crunch.

The property eventually sold for £475,000. The Jarvises lost around £8,000, only half of which has been reclaimed through the courts.

The judge told Mr Jerome he had carried out a 'pattern of persistent and systematic deceit on a number of people for a considerable amount of time'.

'The worst aspect was not the amount of money but the emotional distress caused.'

Mrs Jerome, the judge said, played a secondary role. No confiscation order was made because the couple, who are of no fixed abode, have no assets.

Mrs Jerome retired last year and lives off a state pension. Her husband, who posed as an international businessman for their scams, is believed to have been unemployed for the past six years.

Outside-court, Mr Jarvis said: 'I wish my wife had seen this day. It would have meant so much to her to know justice had finally been done.'

Speaking after the earlier court hearing, Mrs Smullen, 58, said: 'I have dealt with criminals each working day of my professional life but I was completely fooled.'

Detective Sergeant John Baston, of Thames Valley Police, said 'The sellers had to haul them through the county courts - a process that took months in each instance and caused great distress.

'By the time they got their homes back they had dramatically dropped in value because of the credit crunch.'

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