Carer stole £288k life savings from thrifty widow, 102
A CHARITY worker was jailed for nine years yesterday for stealing the £288,000 life savings of a ‘ frugal’ 102-year-old widow.
Julie Sayles, 59, was entrusted by relatives to look after Edith Negus because they mistakenly believed she worked for a respectable charity.
But Friends of the Elderly Bridlington, run by Sayles for a £27,000 salary, had no link to the national Friends of the Elderly charity.
Mrs Negus began receiving care from the local charity as her physical and mental health deteriorated and her family were unable to look after her due to their own health.
The pensioner, who had no children and appeared to have little cash, lived in a dirty house and wore second-hand clothes.
But Sayles discovered Mrs Negus had a fortune stashed away in bank accounts from decades of careful living. Born in an era of make-do-and-mend, she was described as extremely thrifty, even stockpiling tinned food fearing another war. Sayles set about taking it all. She opened a joint bank account and transferred the pensioner’s savings into it, before using the cash to buy two houses under her own name.
She also got Mrs Negus to leave all assets to her in a new will.
After the widow’s death in October 2014, shocked relatives found family photos had gone from her bungalow, with a wardrobe of fur coats, two Staffordshire pot dogs and £288,000. Authorities had been alerted after a neighbour overheard Sayles talking to Mrs Negus about a new will. The charity worker was later arrested.
A jury at Hull Crown Court found her guilty of five counts of fraud, two of concealing or converting criminal property and one of making an article for use in fraud.
Sentencing yesterday, Recorder Anthony Kelbrick praised the victim, who had run a guest house with her late husband Jack.
The judge said Mrs Negus ‘lived through two World Wars, survived two bombings in London and was born when horses and carriages were still using our streets’.
‘She was not lavish,’ he added. ‘She and her husband must have saved much of what they earned. She never realised perhaps she could and should have enjoyed some of the hard-earned saving.’
He told Sayles: ‘ You became aware she was not a poor old lady … but one with a considerable fortune. You took advantage of her frailty time and time again.’
Ann Ruthven, Mrs Negus’s greatniece, said: ‘She would have been horrified with anything like this.’
A Proceeds of Crime probe will now try to recover the stolen cash.