Rogue pie seller sentenced

A rogue pie seller who preyed on elderly people in Shropshire by making up elaborate tales about food he was selling them has been handed an 18-month conditional discharge by magistrates.Paul Rye, of Belvidere Lane, Shrewsbury, sold pies and eggs door-to-door to homes in Shrewsbury and surrounding villages and lied about where they had come from.

At Shrewsbury Magistrates Court yesterday the 45-year-old self-confessed loner was also banned from driving for 12 months in a bid to prevent him travelling around the county selling the products.

Rye had already admitted 16 charges of breaching trade descriptions and two charges of making false trade descriptions when he appeared for sentencing. Mr Mike Davies, prosecuting, said Rye had deliberately targeted elderly people in sheltered housing schemes in selling the pies.

He said he had conjured up false tales including telling customers that the pies were made in his barn and that they contained meat hand-reared on his family's farm. They were in fact machine produced and bought from a bakery in Telford.

Magistrates also ordered Rye to pay £200 in costs. Mrs Natasha Abel, for Rye, said her client suffered with depression and paranoid psychosis, for which he was seeking professional medical help.