A trader from Angus has been cleared of criminality after paying a nurse for an Apple watch using a wad of “movie money” prop cash.
Convicted thief Daniel Tait, 28, stood trial accused of knowingly tendering counterfeit cash as genuine to unsuspecting nurse Chloe Churchill.
Miss Churchill said she felt “betrayed” when she found the payment was a pile of ten phoney Bank of England £20 notes – each printed with “movie money”.
“Shocked” Tait quickly returned the phone.
The allegation was found not proven by Sheriff Derek Reekie following a trial which lasted two days at Forfar Sheriff Court.
He said: “I suspect very much there’s a lot more to this but I can’t convict on suspicion.”
Earlier this year, Tait was reprimanded by the same sheriff for cashing in on more than £1000 worth of phoney Facebook Marketplace sales and depositing his ill-gotten gains into investment accounts.
Suspicious sale
Miss Churchill, 27, told the trial she listed an Apple Watch on selling site Gumtree and agreed a price of £200 with Tait.
On February 1 2022, she met him in Forfar for the handover but was immediately suspicious.
“I was given an address in Forfar to meet him.
“The house looked empty. He came from the opposite direction. He said he’d just been to the bank.”
Miss Churchill’s wary partner Connor Cresswell photographed the handover.
She said: “I got out the car and met him in the street.
“The person checked over the watch and gave me the money.
“I asked my partner to check it. He said ‘that’s fake’ straight away.
“It was in £20 notes – I just counted how many notes there were. I didn’t expect anything to be fake.
“They all had in very, very small writing, ‘movie money’, on all of them.
“It felt real, it felt like real plastic.
“I was very upset about the situation after it happened. I just felt betrayed by a stranger.”
Watch returned
Offshore engineer Mr Cresswell, 31, told the court he “instantly” recognised the banknotes as fake from his time handling cash as a mechanic.
He said all ten notes were “flimsy” and looked as though they had been photocopied.
They handed back the counterfeit wad but retained one note which they gave to police.
Tait was messaged on Gumtree to return and did so shortly after.
In response to the news that his payment notes weren’t legitimate, he messaged: “You’re joking.”
Accused’s explanation
On the second day of his trial, Tait said he had received the bank notes a day earlier, after selling a phone to a friend’s brother.
The motorcycle mechanic, of Lowson Avenue in Forfar, explained he repairs and “flips” items to make extra cash on the side.
He told Miss Churchill he had withdrawn money before the sale but used the banknotes he had been given the day before instead.
He said: “I was quite shocked.”
He claimed Mr Cresswell texted him later that night: “Those are the best notes I’ve seen.”
Cannot convict ‘on suspicion’
Sheriff Reekie ruled he could not be sure beyond reasonable doubt Tait knew or believed the notes were fake.
He described one he was shown as “remarkably similar” to genuine Bank of England bills.
Addressing Tait, he said: “I need to tell you that I was not at all impressed with your evidence.
“The fundamental issue is, am I satisfied that you knew or believed this was a fake?
“I don’t know where you got it from. I reject your evidence in its entirety.
“However, what it boils down to is… on the basis of the real evidence… would somebody looking at that have reason to delve further?
“I suspect very much there’s a lot more to this but I can’t convict on suspicion.”
Conned became con-artist
In April, Sheriff Reekie labelled Tait’s sustained campaign of second-hand scamming “sickening” after he put cash from fictitious online sales into investment accounts.
He ordered Tait to pay compensation and interest and placed him on a curfew, saying: “You seem to have expressed to the author of the social work report that you’ve been a victim of something similar and you were annoyed and feel taken advantage of.
“You can perhaps start to feel how these people feel.”
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