VICTIMS of fraudster travel agent Kathy Ward are outraged that she was not sent to prison.
They say the clear message sent out by the Crown Court in Downpatrick last week was that “crime pays” and that if you are a “big hitter” then you won’t be sent to jail.
Several people who are owed money by Ward did not want to give an interview as they left court, with a number making it clear they were “too upset to talk.”
Others said they cannot believe that a custodial sentence was not imposed on a woman who swindled scores of her customers out of tens of thousands of pounds.
As one woman left the court she told reporters she did not want to say anything as she was “so cross and disappointed” at the judge’s ruling to allow Ward to “walk free.”
As some of Ward’s victims dodged a posse of television cameras and reporters, some did speak to vent their fury at the court’s decision to impose a suspended sentence on a travel agent who defrauded her customers of over £110,000.
One of them, Lenore Rea, from Downpatrick, suggested the overriding message to emerge from the court case is that “crime pays.”
“For young people who offend in a minor way, today’s court ruling says do it in a big way and you will get off,” she declared.
“If you are on the bottom of the heap you will get punished for your crime but, if you are at the top, like the bankers and people of this nature, there is a different justice system and you will get off.”
Mrs. Rea said she was “not one bit surprised” Ward wasn’t jailed and believed that a suspended prison sentence would have been imposed.
Asked what she thought the implications of the court’s sentence were, the Downpatrick woman declared: “We might as well all get at it.”
Mrs. Rea continued: “If I took £2,000 out of someone’s pocket I would be sent to jail almost immediately. If you do things in a particular way you are more likely to get off with it.
“The more clever and the more scheming you are, the more you are likely to get off. There is no such thing as justice. There is justice and there are the laws and the laws are entirely divorced from justice.”
Mrs. Rea said when Ward’s sentence was handed down in court there was stunned silence, with her victims trying to take in what they had heard.
She added: “I am not concerned about me. I am concerned about how this will appear to the general public; that if you do things in a big and a clever way you will get away with it.
“If you are a wee lad who has been dragged up and got into trouble you are going to be caught. What about the local man who was jailed for four months recently for stealing money out of collection boxes in local chapels. He did not get a suspended sentence.”
Asked if crime pays, Mrs. Rea added: “Of course it does, of course it does.”