Victims conned by Fife funeral director to appear on TV series

A host of customers who lost thousands of pounds in fraudulent pre-paid funeral plans will appear on The Big Swindle alongside Sarah Yorke, the employee who first discovered the sick plot.

Barry Stevenson-Hamilton was charged with having formed a scheme to obtain money by fraud, acquiring £130,207 between January 2016 and September 2019.

He was jailed for 33 months last year at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.

Sarah will be telling her side of the story during the second episode of the new series, which starts this Saturday, May 13.

She told the Times: "I had declined a couple of shows before because they were more about the funeral industry, and I still work in it, but this was about Barry and what he did.

"There were another three of four victims and they gave their stories and I explained how I rumbled him, how I alerted police and the whole story surrounding the whole sorry situation."

The director of Stevenson Funeral Directors Ltd, which had premises in Cowdenbeath and Cardenden, and Funeral (Care) Scotland Ltd, admitted the charge in July 2022 in front of a court full of victims who cheered at his guilty plea.

Stevenson-Hamilton told customers they were buying a pre-paid funeral plan with Avalon Trustee Company Ltd and that the money paid would be held securely by Avalon.

In 2019 Sarah, and a co-worker, found documents that showed customers weren’t registered with Avalon, money wasn’t paid to the company and, as a result, they had not purchased a funeral plan.

Then, in December of last year, Stevenson-Hamilton, also known as Barry Fisher, appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court after admitting an offence under the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001.

The charge stated that he acted with intent to deceive at an undisclosed address in Lanarkshire on January 14, 2021, and falsely represented himself as a registered nurse.

He was admonished by the Sheriff.

"Those three years have weighed heavily on me and the victims, he was given 33 months as it wasn't his first offence, but even with that he's been released this month under house arrest and with a curfew," Sarah continued.

"It's infuriating, the time and effort everybody spent, I fought for every victim but the justice system only gave him eight months.

"The whole point of doing the show is to get publicity for Barry, he is a master fraudster, a master scammer.

"The more we can get his face and aliases out there, the less able he is to be able to defraud vulnerable people."

Sarah had previously compared Stevenson-Hamilton to Ted Bundy and has stated that he was a "modern day Frank Abagnale".

He was found to have scammed more than 60 people after Sarah found folders with copies of funeral plans which should have been sent straight to Avalon and receipts signed by Stevenson-Hamilton.

After he was found out, the former undertaker registered as Barry Fisher with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC).

During this time he acted as a support worker in a care home service for adults.

The fraudster was last week struck off the care register due to his charges in Hamilton and Kirkcaldy, and after, while working as a healthcare assistant in a hospital setting for Clinical 24, he failed to inform his employer of a Temporary Suspension Order (TSO) placed on his record.

Ms Yorke, while welcoming the decision by the SSSC, said she doesn't "underestimate Barry at all" and that he would "find a way" to continue his scams.

She said: "I think it's fantastic and certainly they have taken the view that they will do everything in their power to prevent him from working with vulnerable or elderly people.

"That's his target audience, that's who he goes to, but as much as I think that's brilliant I don't underestimate Barry at all.

"They may have struck him off as Barry Fisher, that's not even his name, but all he needs to do is change his name, get another load of documentation, and get back in there again.

"I would bet my mortgage on it.

"Make no bones about it, he will find a way, as much as I think it's fantastic that they have taken that action, he will absolutely find a way around it."

A SSSC report stated: "Social services workers are required to act with honesty and integrity at all times.

"You have been convicted of portraying yourself as a registered nurse and convicted of fraud.

"Such convictions represent an abuse of the trust and confidence placed in you, and represent the most serious of departures from the codes of practice.

"These behaviours amount to impairment that is fundamentally incompatible with professional registration."

It added that his failure to disclose to his employer that he had been made subject to a TSO indicated "underlying values and attitudinal issues".

After discovering Stevenson-Hamilton's secret, Sarah thought she had completely lost the career she spent 10 years building.

"You think you know Barry but you never know Barry," she said.

"It's one of those hurdles in my life you never want to repeat, I thought my career was over and he had taken that from me.

"I try not to let it affect me day-to-day, I truly hope we get as much out there to make sure he can never do it again.

"It's worth it to get it out there, at the end of the day all we've done is give him eight more months to sit and think of some scam."

Filming for the show took place in October of last year and it had been due to release in January, though had to be delayed.

Following Stevenson-Hamilton's guilty plea, several victims came forward in the Times to tell their stories.

Rosyth woman Susan Mitchell told of how she lost £4,000 paid for her mother's funeral while another, Beatrice Russell, described the con-artist as appearing "genuine and friendly" when she purchased a funeral plan from him.

The Big Swindle begins broadcast on Quest Red from Saturday, May 13, and will be on Discovery Plus from May 20.