Prison for man who defrauded ill wife

A husband who embezzled £150,000 from his wife after she became ill has been jailed for more than two years.

Bernard Houston, 53, squandered his wife’s cash at gaming arcades after she suffered a brain aneurysm weeks into their marriage.

When she was discharged after several months in hospital, Houston, who had been unemployed, became her carer, earning an allowance of £60 a week.

When her concerned family questioned the deterioration in her quality of life they were told that the money was none of their business. Eventually the family discovered credit card, loan applications and bank statements in her name that Houston had concealed.

Houston, from Castlemilk, pleaded guilty at the city’s sheriff court to embezzling £150,000 between June 2010 and December 2014. He admitted a further four fraud charges of obtaining £11,500 in his wife’s name.

Jailing him for 27 months, Sheriff John McCormick said:“These sums were embezzled over approximately four years from your spouse who had suffered an aneurysm; you were her carer.”

Houston, a former care home worker, had been jailed for two months in 2006 for stealing £2,800 for gambling from an 85-year-old with dementia.

Houston and his wife began a relationship in 2009 and married on May 22, 2010. On June 28 of that year Mrs Houston suffered an aneurysm which left her reliant on a ventilator in hospital.

She was discharged in October, having regained the ability to walk and talk. Houston, who had been unemployed, was her carer from that date onwards.

The court was told that Mrs Houston received a payment of £50,376 from the NHS, as well as about £1,200 of pension payments a month, directly into her account.

In December 2015, Houston was taken into hospital and his wife’s family discovered her money was gone when checking her bank statements.

Houston, who represented himself, was given the opportunity to give a plea in mitigation but declined.