A conman undertaker who was jailed for selling fake funeral plans to dozens of Fife families has been struck off the care register.
Barry Stevenson-Hamilton made £130,000 by orchestrating a major fraud through branches of his award-winning firm Stevenson Funeral Directors.
Between 2013 and 2019 he targeted vulnerable customers who spent thousands of pounds on pre-paid funeral packages – pocketing the fees instead of lodging them with a trustee.
Stevenson-Hamilton was jailed for 33 months at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court last July.
After the fraud was uncovered, the former undertaker registered as a support worker with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) under the alias Barry Fisher.
He then registered as a carer with social care platform Florence but was subsequently suspended from the organisation in March 2021 following an investigation into an “incident”.
A temporary suspension order (TSO) was also placed on his registration.
‘Fisher’ was then employed by Clinical 24 – a company which supplies medical staff – as a healthcare assistant in a hospital setting but failed to notify the firm of the TSO.
It came just two months after he tried to pass himself off as a registered professional nurse to leading care sector employer H1 Healthcare.
The SSSC has now completely removed him from the register after a hearing into his conduct.
Conman had ‘attitude issues’
A report from the watchdog said: “You failed to disclose to your regulator that you had been charged with fraud, and you failed to disclose to your employer that you had been made subject to a temporary suspension order.
“These behaviours indicate underlying values and attitudinal issues.
“These behaviours could have placed service users at a risk of harm had you worked in a role that you were not appropriately registered or qualified to work in.”
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard previously that Stevenson-Hamilton’s bogus plans were uncovered by staff who worked for the firm.
He eventually admitted selling more than 40 phoney plans by fraudulently offering prepaid funeral care packages from branches in Cardenden, Rosyth, Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy.
He was CEO and director of the company at the time.
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