Spared jail: Telford woman stole £80,000 from brothers aged 90 and 96

Rachel Gilbertson, 44, used her knowledge as a personal banker to move money from the accounts of Leon and Ron Cullina, aged 90 and 96, and launder it through a new account in her name.

Gilbertson admitted two counts of theft, for which she was sentenced to 19 months in jail, and five separate charges of defrauding financial institutions by applying for credit cards in her husband's name, for which she was sentenced to four months to run consecutively.

Mr Robert Edwards, prosecuting, told the court that the two brothers had moved to Telford to be closer to Rachel Gilbertson and her husband, who is their nephew.

When Gilbertson's husband was sent to prison, the brothers continued to be looked after by Gilbertson, who they trusted implicitly.

"That trust was wholly misplaced and she manipulated their finances for her own financial gain to the tune of £80,000," Mr Edwards said.

Gilbertson, of Warwick Way, Leegomery, made herself a third party on their bank accounts and laundered their money through her own Santander account.

The brothers became worried and contacted police.

Mr Edwards told Shrewsbury Crown Court that Mr Ron Cullina had since passed away.

In a separate matter, Mr Edwards said that Gilbertson had successfully applied for five credit cards in the name of her husband, who was in prison serving a long jail sentence.

Judge Anthony Lowe was told that Gilbertson had become a third party on the brothers' bank accounts so that she could buy them things like food and it had not begun as criminal intent.

She had found herself as a single mother with the imprisonment of her husband and death of her brother who had been helping her care for her sons.

Judge Lowe said: "The psychiatrist has told me that her troubled past had left her with problems and that she found a way of coping with her depression by being unable to resist temptation and steal the money."

He said the psychiatric report on Gilbertson had persuaded him to suspend for two years the 23-month sentence he was imposing on her.

He also ordered that she should also serve a six-month curfew from 7.30pm to 6.30am.

"I have been told that she suffers from low self esteem and a morbid fear of losing relationships and, after the imprisonment of her husband and death of her brother, she fell into severe depression," he said.