So how was it for me?

The last time I went to Cardiff Crown Court I was a young reporter on the Western Mail with pretty good shorthand.

Today, almost a quarter of a century later, and with slightly less perfect Teeline, I was back: this time not as a reporter but as the son of a victim of crime.

Two things I learned today: the acoustics aren't so great in the public seats and you don't get to see the defendant's face during sentencing.

Sean White was smirking as he arrived at court and appeared to be smirking as he was taken down.

Perhaps he was born smirking, or he thought he got off lightly with a two-year sentence, the second out on licence.

The sentence would have been longer but the prosecution were unable to prove that White profited by more than the £2,000 he claimed. It was also reduced by one third for his guilty plea.

It was surreal to emerge from the court building and be faced by TV and still cameras and several hacks waiting to talk to my sister and me, an inside-out view of my daily existence.

All, from Real Radio to Wales News, asked me the how-do-you-feel question about the sentence.

I'm not unhappy with it. I'm not convinced keeping him banged up for longer would help the greater good. I'd rather see him doing some tough but useful community work, provided the judicial experience is enough to stop him doing something similar to someone else's mother.

On the other hand, perhaps he was smirking because he is genuinely terrified of the guys behind this and thinks he'll be safer inside.

For me, this not about revenge; it's not about the money. It's about how an evil bunch of greedy parasites tormented a dying elderly widow in her own home.

What pleased me most about the process was the way the judge, Paul Thomas QC, understood the impact of the crime on my mother and our family and the way he reflected that in the way he spoke to White.

The other question I've been asked today is: how did it happen?

That's a question, in the absence of my mother, none of us can fully answer. She was so ashamed at having been conned that she chose to suffer in silence with devastating consequences for her health.

We're not exactly the Waltons but throughout this she carried on as a Mum and devoted Granny with absolutely no hint of the inner mental torment she must have felt.

I thought our discovery of the scam would help give her peace of mind in her final weeks.

I was wrong. The shame she felt made things worse and she never came to terms with her fatal illness despite the brilliance of the staff at the Marie Curie Holme Tower hospice in Penarth.

I've been really touched by how many people have been in touch today and have shared or re-tweeted the story. The messages have helped restore my fractured faith in the fundamental decency of most people.

 I even had an e-mail from someone who was in Sunday School with my late father in Ammanford 70 years ago. Thank you all. Carry on re-tweeting.

It's not an obvious story to share, and re-living events today has been draining. I would rather not have had to bare my soul across the media but only by spreading the news can we alert people to the way some evil lowlifes target the old and vulnerable.

I have been asked the "closure" question a few times today. Part of me hates these psychobabble terms, but I understand what this one means. The main villains behind what the judge called this wicked enterprise are still out there so "closure" is some way off.

But as a family we can move on, to borrow another phrase from the world of psychobabble. We have to move on.

Back to the day job. Can I interest you in a fascinating item on the Barnett formula....?

A life's savings gone: how?

They are the most jaw-dropping, eye-popping bank statements I have ever seen.

The pattern of spending resembles that of a Premier League footballer rather than an elderly widow. Has my mother suddenly swapped "tinsel and turkey" breaks in Falmouth for nights out at Bouji's?

These are cash withdrawals she made from branches of NatWest:

Penarth Branch:

6 May 2008 - £6,000,
22 July 2008 - £4,500,
29 July 2008 - £4,500,
19 Aug 2008 - £4,000,
5 Nov 2008 - £18,000,
14 Jan 2009 - £6,000,
31 March 2009 - £5,000,
16 April 2009 - £5,000,
5 May 2009 - £7,000.

Barry Town Hall:

29 July 2008 - £2,000,
20 Aug 2008 - £4,000,
11 Nov 2008 - £6,000,
21 Jan 2009 - £13,000,
26 March 2009 - £5,000,
1 May 2009 - £10,000,
5 May 2009 - £10,000,
4 June 2009 - £5,000,
10 June 2009 - £5,000.

Cardiff University Hospital branch:

19 Aug 2009 - £6,500

She also made two electronic transfers totalling £115,000, from her NatWest account to Sean White, who was jailed today.

How could it happen? It's a question I've been asked today by others, and one I've been asking myself for six months.

My mother had banked with NatWest and its predecessors for 61 years and was a customer of its Private Banking service - NatWest managed her life savings. She was a former bank employee and an RBS pensioner thanks to my late father's work there. His father worked for a NatWest predecessor. So discovering her spending habits was something of a shock to say the least.

As any son would, I contacted her bank as soon as I found the paper trail that led to today's case. I was told: "Unless Mrs Cornock told us she was the victim of fraud, there was nothing we could do."

NatWest told me that, like other banks, have a strict duty of confidentiality to other customers and could not have alerted family members to the pattern of withdrawals.

I questioned why a widow pensioner was given her first overdraft - of £5,000 - at the age of 76. NatWest said the overdraft facility was standard and it wrote to her - in July 2009 - to reduce the limit.

The bank promised to investigate my concerns last September. My mother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I hoped to secure some peace of mind for her in her last months.

After six weeks, having heard little I asked the bank if contacting the press office would produce a quicker response. I was told: "No newspaper would be interested".

Journalists love a challenge, so I contacted the Observer and the Daily Mirror in the hope of getting some answers while my mother was still alive. It appears my news judgement is sounder than some who work in banking.

I questioned why the bank did not raise concerns over the sums involved, as they added up to more than the value of my mother's home. The bank told me that "no bank is able to know all these details for all its customers". My mother's home was insured by.....NatWest.

NatWest say their investigations revealed that counter staff carried out the checks required of any vulnerable customer withdrawing huge sums of money. Indeed, one staff member at Penarth went outside the branch with my mother to check she was not being followed.

The two payments to Sean White passed "due diligence" checks by the bank, which said it accepted my mother's assurances that they were to open a bond at HSBC (despite the cash going straight into White's account) and that they were to an accountant. (NatWest's personal tax service completed her tax returns each year - if she had an accountant, it was them).

Sadly, my mother died last November before NatWest completed their investigations.

NatWest have consistently denied any liability, but have (verbally) offered us £60,000 as a "goodwill gesture" which we have told them we are minded to accept as a way of moving on from this trauma that does not involve enriching lawyers.

As a BBC correspondent I strive to be fair and impartial in accordance with our Values. As a son writing a personal blog I am doing the same although you may not be surprised to learn that I have recently changed the banking habits of a lifetime.

Estate agent jailed over my Mum's life savings

This is Cardiff estate agent Sean White, as he would like his friends to see him, on a popular social networking site.

Facebook may be the only way his friends can see him in the near future, as he is now beginning a short term in what he would doubtless describe as a deceptively spacious prison cell.

White, of 18, Glenroy Street, Roath, Cardiff, is paying the penalty for laundering £115,000 from an old lady's life savings. His victim was Anne Cornock, a 76-year-old widow from the Vale of Glamorgan.

My mother did not live to see Sean White face justice. She died last November from cancer, her last months destroyed by the way Sean White and his mates conned her out of her life savings.

In all, she lost £272,300 in a scam linked to a new drive on her modest bungalow in Sully, near Penarth. Unknown to her family, who discovered the scam by accident while she was in hospital, she was conned and threatened for more than a year, too ashamed and frightened to call the police or tell anyone.

Today, at Cardiff Crown Court, Sean White was sentenced to two years - a year in jail, a year on licence -after pleading guilty to two counts of money laundering £115,000.

Judge Paul Thomas QC told White: "You were a vital component in this wicked enterprise. Without thoroughly dishonourable people like you, these men who exploited Mrs Cornock could not have profited so easily."

White committed the crimes while proprietor of his own business - Masons Homes (Rumney) Ltd. At the time of his arrest - and for three months afterwards - White was sales manager of Seraph Estates in Cardiff. The judge told him he would "never again be employed in a position of trust - and deservedly so".

White's defence was that he did not know where the money that ended up in his bank account came from, even though my mother's name clearly showed on online bank statements. White swiftly emptied the account; the money is long gone.

He told the police that he only knew those he passed the money to by nicknames. Would you lend your bank account details to someone you hardly knew? Me neither.

If you were a gang intent on fleecing an old lady for her life savings would you entrust £115,000 of your ill-gotten gains to someone you barely knew? I don't think so.

Besides the £115,000 sent by electronic transfer, my mother handed over a total of more than £150,000 in cash in payments to these thugs who regularly called at her home. The cash withdrawals from branches of NatWest in Penarth and Barry - £18,000 here, £7,000 there, and so on over a period of months, stopped only when she was admitted to hospital last September. She never came home.

My mother was a sensible, cautious woman who was prudent before Gordon Brown learned to spell the word.

She was a private person and was deeply ashamed of being conned in this way. She would not have appreciated this blog post or wanted others to know what she went through. It is very painful for me to have to re-live the events of last year. But if my Mum could fall for it, then so could yours.

Sean White, who has shown zero remorse, is behind bars but the villains who used his bank account are still out there, free to target other vulnerable old people.
 
Today, at  Cardiff Crown Court, I listened as White's barrister told Cardiff Crown Court how he'd played only a minor part in what the lawyer admitted was the systematic swindling of an old lady.
 
We heard about White's relationship problems, his child, his business failure, his own housing difficulties. There was just one word missing from the plea of mitigation.
 
Sorry.