Pensioner stole £7,000 from father’s life savings intended for mum’s care
A PENSIONER who stole £7,000 of her father’s life savings which was intended to pay for the care of her sick mother, has been given three weeks to start repaying the money or risk going to jail.
Patricia Freer, aged 65, stole the money from her 86-year-old father’s safe in July last year, which he had set aside to pay for his wife’s care at a nursing home where she had been admitted suffering from dementia.
Northampton Crown Court heard the money was also intended to pay for alterations to his property in the hope his wife would then be able to return home. However, Freer stole the money from her father, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, and used it to buy back her jewellery from a pawnbrokers.
She appeared before Judge Richard Bray yesterday to be sentenced, having previously pleaded guilty to theft.
Kathryn Howarth, mitigating, said Freer’s marriage had suffered as a result of the theft which was committed at a time when she was suffering from mental health problems.
She said Freer was offering to repay her father at a rate of £100 a month which would take six years to fulfil. Judge Bray said: “This offence happened in July and she has not paid anything back, in any shape or form since then.
“What I want to see is practical steps put into practice.
“She needs to help her father who she blatantly stole £7,000 from. He needs the money now for his wife, this defendant’s mother, who is in terrible straights.
“This is a case of extraordinary meanness. The money is urgently needed for her mother and it’s been stolen by her and spent on her own purposes and gratification, spent to get back her jewellery while her mother languishes in a home.
“It’s a terrible story; not even Dickens could have matched this.”
Freer, of Deal Court, The Mounts, Northampton pleaded guilty before magistrates and the case was sent to the crown court for sentence.
Judge Bray added: “I’m going to adjourn for serious and immediate payment to be made to her father for what she’s done and when she’s done that we can have a look at this case again. But not before. I expect at least £1,000 to be paid by next time.”
Freer was granted bail until later this month.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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