Riggs: Act was deliberate and cold-blooded (From Penarth Times)

Riggs: Act was deliberate and cold-blooded

A JURY at Cardiff Crown Court heard how Penarth's Band of Gold jeweller Gary Riggs conned a pensioner into swapping a diamond ring worth 40,000 for a cheap piece of costume jewellery in an act of "deliberate, cold-blooded dishonesty".

The claim was made at the start of his trial, which began in Cardiff on Tuesday.

Meirion Davies, prosecuting, told the court how Riggs had tricked pensioner Muriel Whitehouse, "a vulnerable, elderly woman" into exchanging valuable items of jewellery for quartz costume jewellery worth 100.

Staff at Ty Dyfan nursing home in Barry, where Ms Whitehouse - who died last year - was staying, became concerned and informed Social Services .

Riggs is also alleged to have "stripped bare" Mrs Whitehouse's bank account with the Halifax.

The court also heard how one of Riggs' customers, who claims to have seen a piece of jewellery he took into the shop to be melted down later up for sale in the shop window, dubbed the shop "Bandit of Gold."

Riggs is accused of obtaining thousands of pounds by deception by passing off counterfeit Rolex watches as genuine.

Meirion Davies also told the court how Riggs arranged for an unknown man to follow and intimidate a witness in the case.

The witness was allegedly followed from his home in Mountain Ash to Cardiff by a man in an Impreza car.

When the witness stopped at traffic lights, the man wound down the window and said: "If you carry on the case against Gary, I'll kill you."

On separate occasions, the side window and the windscreen of the witness's car were allegedly smashed.

Riggs, of Lynmouth Drive, Sully, faces eight counts of obtaining property by deception, two counts of theft and four counts of witness intimidation.