A teenage cyber conman who bought personal details via social media to buy goods in other people’s names has been spared jail.
Jackson Ormiston, who is now 21, was caught because he had the phones, computers and clothes he ordered delivered to his home address in Western Road, Hove.
He wore some of the Nike tracksuit bottoms he bought to one of his police interviews.
Today, Lewes Crown Court heard his victims included a young student who depended on his online accounts and an elderly man who was already struggling with technology.
Sentencing, Judge Joshua Swirsky said: “These are not victimless crimes. You have heard of the inconvenience and distress this behaviour causes cybercrime victims.
“Confidence in the online system of shopping and making payments everyone has to deal with the online world these days.
“It’s all too easy in my experience for young people to assume this sort of crime doesn’t hurt anyone and I hope your experience today and during the course of these proceedings has shown you otherwise.
“Given your age and experience and the extremely low value, I’m satisfied your offending can be met with the making of a community order.”
Prosecuting, Naomi Edwards said: “There are opportunities to purchase compromised personal details through social media and access accounts such as PayPal, eBay and Santander.
“The victims only realise when they get notifications to say purchases have been made.”
She added: “Your honour can see that the police have done a huge amount of work to connect the dots in terms of Ormiston’s involvement in this, beyond the fact they were delivered to his home address.”
Ormiston’s first scam purchases were in July 2023, when he was just 18. He bought two second hand iPhone from eBay using Alexander Cummings’ account, accessed via a sim swap scam.
In October that year, he bought a computer from a website called Stock Must Go using Victoria Roberts’ Barclays account.
In January 2024, he bough food from McDonald’s and Pret a Manger via James Yates’s Uber Eats account, again accessed via a sim swap.
Finally, in April 2024, he bought the tracksuits from JD Sport using Sianelise Davies’s details.
It was from Mr Yates’s report to Action Fraud that detectives were able to identify Ormiston – and they were then able to link all the other cases.
In total, the goods he fraudulently ordered were worth £601. All the victims were reimbursed.
Defending, David Langwallner said: “One’s heart goes out to the elderly gentleman coping with technology and the student reliant on his phone.
“My client has expressed genuine remorse. He is willing to pay an amount of money back. He is mortified to find himself in the position he’s in today.”
As well as the one-year community sentence and 160 hours of unpaid work, Judge Swirsky ordered him to pay £100 to each victim, and £600 towards the prosecution’s costs.
