Jailed, carer who fleeced widow, 102, out of £289k
Sayles had already bought two homes but her scam began to unravel when a neighbour alerted police after overhearing the carer trying to persuade Mrs Negus to change her will shortly before her death.
Jennifer Booth told police she felt “physically sick” upon hearing a conversation in which Sayles said: “Your solicitor is gone and your will is null and void because your memory is going and you’re getting old.
“I want you to take a will out leaving your estate to me and I will make sure that if you want to give anyone anything, I shall give them it.”
During a six-day trial at Hull Crown Court, Sayles claimed the money had been “a gift”.
But a jury took fewer than two hours to find her guilty of five counts of fraud, two of concealing or converting criminal property and one of making an article for use in fraud.
Jurors had asked if Sayles could have been charged with neglect or even manslaughter, but the judge told them to concentrate only on the charges before them.
Mrs Negus, who rode around Bridlington on a bicycle up to the age of 98, was described by her great-niece Barbara Suter as: “The sweetest lady I ever met.”
The widow met her husband Jack while working in a London bar during the war.
The couple moved North to the seaside resort and ran a guest house Edith Negus was left to live in squalor before Jack died. Mrs Negus, who played the piano in two churches, was cared for by her niece Kathleen Derek and her husband Leslie, who did repairs, gardening and decorating.
Robert Stevenson, prosecuting, said Mrs Negus loved her family and wrote a will at age 72, never changing it even when she became 100.
“It is beyond belief that she would want to write her family out of her will,” he added.
Sayles, of Bridlington, told the jury she “loved Edith, shared the same faith and had torn up cheques before accepting the money”.
She added: “The donation was in relation to our friendship. I did not think it was too much.”
Sayles sobbed as Recorder Anthony Kelbrick said: “For a merciless fraudster like you there can be only one sentence. Prison.”