Carer stole £20,000 from elderly Oswestry woman to buy cocaine and festival tickets

Lauren Pearce pleaded guilty to fraud after using the 75-year-old victim’s bank card at cash points, to pay for the holiday to Ibiza, and for tickets for her and friends to attend Creamfields Festival.

Shrewsbury Crown Court heard that the victim, from Oswestry, suffers from anxiety and depression and has not been able to leave her home for some time so relies on carers.

Judge Anthony Lowe was told that Pearce, 25, would be trusted to withdraw £250 in cash at a time from a cashpoint for the victim and that between December 2016 and September last year she stole just under £21,000 in goods and cash.

Ms Laura Nash, prosecuting, said another one of the victim’s carers noticed there were anomalies on the spending.

She said: “Concerns were raised and police were called who reviewed the bank transactions, noticed the fraudulent ones and reviewing CCTV for the cash points and saw a Vauxhall Corsa pull up and Miss Pearce get out and withdraw the cash.”

In September last year Pearce was arrested and interviewed where she admitted the fraudulent transactions.

Miss Nash added that Pearce also had a cocaine habit which she needed to pay for.

Mitigating Mr Robert Edwards said Pearce’s mother died five years ago and her actions spiralled out of control after a relationship with an abusive partner resulted in the culprit being convicted.

He said: “It’s the beginning of a spiral which led to her being in crown court.

“She was suffering exceptionally low self esteem and turned to the use of cocaine.

“She tried to give herself some self esteem by living a lifestyle she could not afford.

“She has voluntarily got counselling to help her drug use and concedes that she was motivated by greed.

“She betrayed the victims’ trust and that’s something that is going to stay with her for the rest of her days.”

Judge Anthony Lowe sentenced Pearce, of Bryn Road, Moss, Wrexham, to 12 months in prison, of which she will serve six.

He said: “I accept that you now realise what you did in your own words was selfish and there is no excuse for it and the likelihood of you coming before a criminal court again is remote.

“But what you did was a blatant breach of trust, not only did you betray the victim’s trust but the whole care worker industry, because it’s offences like these that create a lack of trust in people that are cared for and the families who have elderly relatives who are being cared for.

“There has to be a message going out that anybody who is tempted to take money from elderly people will go to prison.”