Man jailed after stealing £50,000 from dad to spend on sausage rolls and OnlyFans

A son who stole £50,000 from his father and wasted it on sausage rolls and OnlyFans has been jailed for two years.

Stephan Dewar, 31, was branded despicable by a sheriff after he admitted posing as his vulnerable father to steal from him for several years.

Dewar pretended to be his father to carry out a £50,000 fraud to fund purchases from Greggs and OnlyFans, stealing the lump sum after secretly setting up online banking and posing as him during calls to the bank.

This week, Dewar was jailed for 24 months after he admitted carrying out large-scale fraud from his father, Andrew Dewar, 67, over three years.

He admitted forming a fraudulent scheme and posing as Mr Dewar to steal from his bank account between 2019 and 2022.

Fiscal depute Jill Drummond told Dundee Sheriff Court that Dewar had initially persuaded his father to lend him £5,000 for the purchase of a pub.

The court heard his father had suffered a stroke in 2007 and did not use the internet or online banking, but had a substantial pension from his past employment.

Sheriff George Way said: ‘This was a despicable crime. This was a breach of a profound obligation to protect and look after your father – not to steal £50,000 from him.

‘There isn’t even a decent explanation, like you had some really serious gambling addiction and you were being threatened by criminals or something of that nature.

‘You have frittered most of this money away in indulging yourself in drink, entertainment, and a lifestyle you couldn’t afford. People who breach trust of this type and magnitude have to be punished in a way the public understands. You also failed to appear for this case and cost the public a great deal of money and inconvenience.’

Dewar was given bank details to help with the loan, and he used them to set up online banking in his father’s name despite him not knowing it.

Phone calls were recorded by the bank about the transaction, and when they were played back, it was identified as Dewar pretending to be his father.

Dewar’s uncle, who was Power of Attorney for Mr Dewar, later noticed significant amounts of money had disappeared from his brother’s account and an investigation was launched.

It quickly became apparent that Dewar had been taking regular amounts from his father’s account and that he would then indulge in brief flurries of spending.

Solicitor Scott Norrie, defending, said: ‘He appreciates it’s a very serious offense. There has been a mixture of shame, embarrassment and fear.’

He said his client had failed to turn up at court several times because he had ‘buried his head in the sand’ and had simply carried on working as normal while ignoring the court case.

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