‘Grandma’ ruse led to £51k con

Support worker Dawn Elliott was the carer for a 30-year-old woman with Down’s Syndrome. She dipped into her victim’s savings for a £172 shopping spree.

The 40-year-old from North Shields admitted theft and was last month given a 24-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months by North Tyneside magistrates. JAILED Robinson stole £250k from a vulnerable blind man of 93 Twisted Kisella Hillman convinced her client Kathleen, who had dementia, that she was her granddaughter.

The lie helped Hillman steal more than £51,000, Taunton crown court in Somerset heard last month.

The crook escorted Kathleen to her bank, calling her “grandma”, and one suspicious member of staff was so upset that she cried when a money transfer was approved.

After being arrested, the 27-year-old told police that the money was a gift, but she was found guilty of theft by abuse of position and will be sentenced next month.

Recorder Jonathan Barnes told Hillman: “You have been convicted by a jury on the plainest of evidence of serious crimes against a vulnerable old lady.” ABUSE OF POWER Hillman

After a four-day trial, a jury took less than an hour to convict Jenna Roberts of stealing £2,600 from the accounts of two elderly people she was employed to look after. The son of one of the victims alerted police when he spotted unexplained withdrawals from his mother’s bank account, which became “severely depleted” over six weeks. Roberts, 32, from Denbigh in north Wales, is due to be sentenced next month at Caernarfon crown court. TRIAL Roberts guilty of theft