West Fife: Barry Stevenson-Hamilton victims to appear on TV

Sarah Yorke, the employee who first discovered the sick plot, will join a host of customers who were conned out in fraudulent pre-paid funeral plans on The Big Swindle.

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 The Big Swindle, which starts on this Saturday, May 13.

She said: "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 or four victims and they gave their stories – 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 Rosyth, 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.

Sarah Yorke discovered Mr Stevenson-Hamilton had been scamming customers.

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.

On that occasion, he was admonished by the sheriff before he was jailed for almost three years in 2022.

Sarah continued: "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.

"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."

Stevenson-Hamilton 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 he had signed.

After leaving the business, 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."

Following Stevenson-Hamilton's guilty plea, several victims came forward 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 will broadcast first on Quest Red from May 13 and then on Discovery Plus from May 20.