A BROMSGROVE woman who tried to rip off an elderly, vulnerable couple by selling them a rubbish roof paint at an extortionate price has avoided spending time behind bars.

The couple, aged 84 and 85-years-old, who lived in Woodbury Road, Halesowen, were conned into believing the paint would massively reduce heat loss but that was a total sham.

Julie Barrett was working as a sales representative in the scam which, said Judge Martin Walsh, duped their retired customers in a “frenzy of commission lead fraud.”

Barrett, 50, now unemployed and living on benefits, of Hewell Avenue had denied one charge of fraud but she was convicted by a jury at the end of her trial.

The Judge told her it was clear she had been dishonest and it had been her aim to make false claims about the the roof paint to John and Elsie Parkes.

“You were involved in selling this product and you made false representations to achieve a sale for commission,” he told Barrett at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

It was serious offending, he stressed, but ruled he was able to place Barrett on supervision for 18 months coupled with 180 hours unpaid work in the community.

After the case Christopher King, a principal trading standards officer, said the prosecution showed that sales staff going from door to door were equally as guilty as the directors of the companies involved.

He said he hoped sentencing in the case which involved more than 2,700 victims nationwide would send out the message that rogue trading would be punished severely.

The two men behind the scam - Alan Wilson 54 of Fazeley Road, Tamworth and 45 year old Christopher Wilkes of Tamworth Lane, Solihull - were both jailed for five years each by the Judge at an earlier hearing.

The court had been told they made grossly exaggerated claims for a product they knew “had little to commend it” and their sales staff had preyed on the fears of customers.

The Judge said Barrett, a woman of previous good character, had been behind a single transaction but it was mean offending bearing in mind the age and vulnerability of her victims.

He said that by ordering her to carry out unpaid work in the community it would help make some recompense for her dishonesty.