‘Mum stole £50k left to her daughters in their late gran’s will’
A MOTHER fleeced her two daughters out of a £50,000 inheritance left to them by their beloved grandmother, a court was told.
Katherine Hill, 53, and her father Gerald, 93, allegedly staged a “blatant and brazen” fraud by emptying the account in just over a year.
The £50,000 bequest had been left for Gemma and Jessica Thomas by their grandmother Margaret, on the proviso that they could access it when they were 25.
Prosecutor James Hartson told Swansea Crown Court Margaret died in 2013 and the money for her grandchildren was in a trust managed partly by their mother.
But he said despite being advised not to, Katherine Hill later put the money into an instant access account, for which she and her father held cards.
Shopping
Within 12 months of it being opened, most of the £50,000 had been removed through cash withdrawals, the jury was told.
The alarm was raised in 2018 when one of the girls asked for her money early so she could buy a house with her boyfriend.
Mr Hartson said transactions included one for £15,000 and others for £10,000, along with a single bank transfer of £2,300 directly into Katherine Hill’s account.
She claimed the £2,300 transfer paid for an operation on the family’s boxer dog, with the agreement of Jessica.
The mother told police card payments made at New Look and Primark were for shopping trips on behalf of her daughters.
Gerald Hill said he had withdrawn money and put it in envelopes through the letterbox of the house where his granddaughters lived, because the girls were “harassing” their mother for money.
Katherine Hill’s ex-husband and Jessica and Gemma’s father, Christopher Thomas, reported the alleged fraud to police, the court heard. Mr Hartson said Hill’s relationship with her daughters became difficult after the divorce from her husband and she suffered physical and mental health problems.
She claimed Jessica and Gemma lived a lavish lifestyle with her expartner and demanded money from her for a new phone, holidays and clothes, the jury was told.
Det Con Aled Brothers, in charge of the case, said the cash was “impossible to follow” and there was no way to trace the money.
Mr Hartson described Katherine Hill, pictured right, as manipulative and dishonest and “no stranger to chucking members of her family under the bus”.
Hill, of Pontardawe, South Wales, and her father, of Gower, southwest Wales, deny fraud by abuse of position. The trial continues.