Carer stole £13,000 from home residents
WOMAN TOOK £13,000 FROM DEMENTIA SUFFERER, 87
A CALLOUS carer who fleeced vulnerable elderly folk while they were ill and dying has been locked up.
Despicable Miriam Raine helped herself to more £13,000 from an 87-year-old dementia patient, used a bank card belonging to a man who was dying from leukaemia and stole a purse from an 89-year old woman with Alzheimer’s.
A court heard the three victims were residents at care homes in Jarrow, Ponteland and North Shields, where the 46-year-old thief was working in 2017.A judge at Newcastle Crown Court said it is “hard to imagine the callousness” of Raine’s offending.
Raine, of Lulworth Avenue, Jarrow, admitted three charges of theft and three of fraud relating to a total of £13,211.97 she took from the pensioners.
Sentencing her to two years behind bars, Judge Penny Moreland told her: “The people that you were supposed to be looking after are among the most vulnerable in our society, elderly, demented, dying.
“It is hard to image the callousness with which you stole from them.
“You breached a high degree of trust and responsibility.
“These were people incapable of looking after themselves, entrusted to you and you stole from them.”
The court heard Raine may have been under the influence of drugs at the time of the offending and confessed she had been using amphetamine while working night shifts.
In the time that has passed since the offences, the court heard Raine has had her own health problems and made attempts to tackle her issues with drugs and gambling.
Shaun Routledge, defending, urged the judge to suspend the prison sentence and allow Raine to be rehabilitated in the community.
But Judge Moreland said: “In my view, applying the guidelines, appropriate punishment can only be achieved by a sentence of immediate custody.”
The judge said despite Raine’s caring role for her husband, her prospects of rehabilitation and the conditions in prison during a pandemic, the sentence had to be served immediately. Judge Moreland added: “Given the callousness of this offending, against a number of victims, I take the view appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody.”