Brisbane man jailed for three years after mortgaging sick dad’s home

Peter Brian Cockroft, 65, plead guilty to fraud in circumstances of aggravation after he mortgaged the home of his 92 year old father, who had been hospitalised with dementia.

The Courier Mail reports that Cockroft mortgaged his father’s home for $565,000 in December 2009. Cockcroft, who wrongly obtained his father’s signature, did not first gain approval from his father’s trustee before he mortgaged the house.

The former company director and financial worker used $540,000 of the money he obtained to invest in the now collapsed Capital Growth International Club.

According to The Courier Mail, Cockroft told authorities that the money was intended to pay for renovations to his father’s home. However the court heard that it was at the time “highly improbable” that the elderly Keith Cockroft would ever return home, given his condition. He passed away at the age of 94 in 2011.

Judge Brendan Butler QC stated that Peter Brian Cockroft “took advantage of an aged person lacking capacity to make his own financial decisions.”

This is not Cockroft’s first jail sentence. He was jailed for two months in 1997 after allegedly misappropriating $75,000.