Man who targeted elderly victims jailed

Shane Woodcock has been in custody since March last year after he was arrested for preying on elderly victims from late 2008 to early 2010. File photo / NZ Herald

A man with a history of preying on elderly victims is likely to be released from prison soon, after a much delayed sentencing inside Christchurch Men's Prison today.

Shane Michael Woodcock, 42, has been in custody more than 14 months and the three-year six-month jail term imposed today means that he will be seeking release before the Parole Board almost immediately.

Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish told him to take the treatment and counselling opportunities offered upon his release and not to offend again.

"If you feel tempted to start this type of behaviour again, next time the judge is likely to impose a really long sentence with a minimum non-parole term," she said.

Details of his background were suppressed by Judge Farish but she said the media could report that he was "someone with their own personal difficulties".

He will have to pay back $3200 to his victims at $20 a week after his release from prison.

Woodcock has ended up in custody since March last year because of delays in his plea, reports, and the two Christchurch earthquakes.

He finally pleaded guilty early in February to two representative charges of demanding to steal and obtaining by deception, which replaced about nine other charges.

The offending involves elderly victims, from late 2008 to early 2010.

On December 22, 2008, he went to a house in Christchurch's Clarence Street where he persuaded an 82-year-old woman to loan him $300 and she gave him her bank card. An associate waited with the woman while Woodcock made two withdrawals of $300 at an automatic teller machine.

Between March and May 2009, Woodcock visited the Sockburn home of a 93-year-old woman three times. The woman suffers from dementia. He said he was boarding with a friend of the woman's family, who was in hospital and needed to borrow money. He got the woman to write him three cash cheques totalling $1100.

In May 2009, Woodcock went to the Union Church in Linwood Avenue where he befriended various pensioners.

He visited one of them, a 71-year-old man in ill health, at his St Albans address where he said he was locked out and needed to borrow money for a locksmith. The man gave him $210 and Woodcock promised to repay it.

He telephoned the man again next day saying that his mother had died of a stroke and he urgently needed to travel to Palmerston North. He went to the house next day to pick up the money he was borrowing.

Two days later, he said he needed another $600 because of his mother's death. The victim felt sorry for him and loaned him the money, to be repaid along with the rest of the loans.

There was a fourth visit and another request for money two weeks later, but a friend of the victim was there and stopped it happening.

That day, he visited another elderly couple he had befriended at the church and said he had been locked out and needed $90. He became upset when they refused and they then agreed to loan him the money.

In January, Woodcock visited a retirement village in Merivale and spoke to a 90-year-old victim. He said he was collecting money for a local church and she gave him $70.

He approached an 81-year-old man and said he had locked himself out. He said he needed money to get tidied up for a job he was starting that day. He said he had once helped the man's wife when she had fallen over, and asked for a $600 cash cheque.

Woodcock has served a four-year prison term imposed in 2002 for similar offending.

Judge Farish said the protection of the elderly within the community was "of paramount importance" and noted that Woodcock's risk of reoffending was seen as reasonably high.

- NZPA