Callous couple stole life savings from husband’s elderly mother
AMARRIED couple fleeced the husband’s elderly mother out of her entire life savings, a court has heard.
Christopher and Isabelle Jones even cancelled the payments to the woman’s care home so they could maximise the amount of money they were able to get their hands on.
They spent the stolen money buying computer games consoles and other gifts for their grown-up children, and paying large monthly internet bills.
Swansea Crown Court heard that 51-year-old Mr Jones’ mother went to live with the couple in their Port Talbot home in 2012 when she was no longer able to live alone.
Helen Randall, prosecuting, said the woman gave her son a mandate to access her bank account, and he would help her with bills and other transactions.
However, with the mother’s health deteriorating, a decision was taken in 2014 that she should move to a Neath Port Talbot Council care home – and at this stage the Joneses began to raid her account.
Over the next two years, the couple took £22,509.52 from their victim’s savings. The prosecutor said much of the money went on paying for items such as laptop computers and computer games consoles, along with “hundreds of pounds a month” to a broadband provider.
The Joneses also cancelled their mother’s standing order for payments towards her care home bill, and she ended up some £13,000 in arrears – though the council seemed unaware the payments had ceased.
The thefts only came to light by chance when another family member spotted the woman’s account was overdrawn and raised concerns with social services, who then contacted the police.
The court heard Mr Jones denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, the thefts – despite being the person with control over his mother’s accounts and owning the account into which his mother’s money was transferred – and blamed everything on his 55-year-old wife, a position he maintained during a trial.
Mrs Jones admitted her wrongdoing to officers, saying she had been solely responsible for the thefts and frauds, and that her husband was blameless. However, the court heard the police thought there was more to the incident than her account, and continued to investigate
Mrs Jones, of Southcross Road, Port Talbot, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of theft and three counts of fraud, and Mr Jones, of the same address, had previously been convicted following trial of the same offences when they appeared in the dock together for sentencing.
Catherine Richards, for Mrs Jones, said her client, who is originally from Belgium, had significant health problems and, at the time of the offending, had been “emotionally and physically exhausted” caring not only for her husband’s mother but also the three grown-up children who lived at home.
The barrister added it was possible to distinguish the different roles the couple had played in the thefts and frauds.
David Singh, for Mr Jones, said there was only “extremely limited” mitigation he could offer, but he said the defendant was not in good health and hoped his wife could maintain her liberty.
Judge Geraint Walters said he had watched a video interview with the victim and that the sight of the elderly woman breaking down in tears at the end of the interview, as she recounted what her son and daughter-in-law had done, would stay with him for some time.
He said it was clear Mrs Jones was an isolated and, to some extent, vulnerable woman who had no family in this country other than her husband and their children, while Mr Jones was “an arrogant man who believes what he says, goes” and who has “a profound belief in his abilities to explain anything away – no matter how ridiculous those explanations are”.
The judge added that he could not claim to fully understand the dynamics of the family but said it was to some extent “dysfunctional”.
For each of the four counts Mr Jones was sentenced to two years in prison, all the sentences to run concurrently with one another, making a total sentence of two years.
Giving Mrs Jones a discount for her guilty plea, the judge sentenced her to 16 months for each of the four counts, to run concurrently and wholly suspended for two years.
Mrs Jones must also complete a rehabilitation course and will be subject to an electronically-monitored 8pm-6am curfew for the next six months.