Fraud Squad, TV review: New series names and shames fraudsters who targeted the elderly

Matthew Noad and Clive Griston tricked people into "investing" their savings in worthless land

Forewarned is forearmed for viewers of the new series of ITV’s Fraud Squad (ITV)

Forewarned is forearmed for viewers of the new series of ITV's Fraud Squad, which detailed a new scam target at the elderly. Victims have been tricked ,or simply bullied, into "investing" their savings in worthless land by companies like Lawrence Taylor & Co Ltd, the one under investigation in tonight's episode. They've made over £10m with their high-pressure sales techniques, but according to the tutting testimony of some rather grey detectives in grey suits, the party is finally coming to an end.

Senior office managers Matthew Noad and Clive Griston were bailed while police sought further evidence to charge them with. That evidence was soon forthcoming. Foolishly they'd filmed themselves in the office giving it the full Wolf of Wall Street, while at Griston's residence, cupboards overflowed with ill-gotten gains in Chanel boxes and Louis Vuitton bags.

It's all particularly objectionable when contrasted with the penury that their actions have inflicted on pensioners such as the Thalidomide survivor who invested his compensation settlement or the 81-year-old who lost £50,000 that might have paid for his grandson to go to university.

The good news is the fraudsters have now all been convicted. What's more, they'll also have to live with the humiliating knowledge that mobile-phone footage of them drunkenly cavorting to Jessie J's "Price Tag" has been broadcast on national television. Their custodial sentences might will be up in a few years, but that kind of shame lives on for ever.