Archive - Wednesday, 6 February 2002


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Not a penny for cowboys

A QUICK-WITTED grandmother gave cowboy contractors the slip after they ordered her to drive to the bank to withdraw hundreds of pounds in cash.

Peny Forbes, 68, kept her cool when she realised the trio of workmen were trying to rip her off.

After completing a substandard job of resurfacing her front pathway the contractors demanded £800 - in cash.

When she said she didn't have that sort of cash in the house one of them insisted on accompanying her from her home in Ricardo Road, Minchinhampton to

Stroud where they demanded she should withdraw the money from Barclays Bank. But wily Mrs Forbes saw seized her opportunity when she realised she had not bought a parking ticket for her car.

She cleverly tricked the man accompanying her into returning to the car to buy a ticket and then she gave him the slip

Mrs Forbes then dashed into a nearby bank to raise the alarm just after lunchtime on Tuesday, January 29.

For more on this story and other Five Valleys news, see this weeks SNJ