Carer Jailed
Carer jailed for defrauding elderly woman
A carer from Stockport who befriended an 88-year-old woman in order to defraud her out of more than £60,000 has been jailed.
43 year old Mandy Jayne Jackson of Macauley Road, North Reddish, was found guilty of four counts of fraud at Minshull Street Crown Court.
Today, Friday 6 November 2015, she was jailed for three years.
The court heard how the elderly victim had moved into a care home in Heaton Mersey, Stockport in 2011 following the sale of her house.
A year later, around January 2012, the care home’s management decided to take the victim into the bank to help her sort out her finances, such as arranging for the payment of her care on a month to month basis.
Mandy Jackson attended this meeting along with the manager of the care home and was therefore privy to details regarding the woman’s finances.
In this meeting it was revealed that the victim had a substantial amount of money in her current account, totalling around £150,000.
It was at this point that Jackson started taking a personal interest in the care of the victim, helping her to the shops on a daily basis and building a friendship with her until she was eventually named as her ‘key worker’ by the home.
Jackson then used this position of trust to gradually steal money from the victim, obtaining a copy of her debit card and using it regularly at shops and cash machines, as well as writing cheques to herself over a period of two years.
She used the victim’s account to pay for a £5,000 bathroom suite to be installed in her house, and even used the stolen debit card while on holiday in Cyprus.
Between February 2012 and January 2014, Jackson is thought to have stolen £19,470 in cash, written cheques to herself totalling £11,445, spent £9,231 in shops and made £19,137 in cash withdrawals using the victim’s debit card.
Detective Constable Shaun Nicholls said: “The cold, calculated nature of this crime is demonstrated by the fact that Jackson started positioning herself close to the victim as soon as it became clear there was money to extort.
“It was soon after she attended the bank meeting with the victim that money started disappearing from the victim’s account bit by bit.
“Jackson spent thousands on shopping on an almost weekly basis, as well as withdrawing cash from machines and even using the victim’s cheque book to pay for a new bathroom.
“This is money that the victim had obtained from the sale of her house, which she relied upon to pay for the care she so desperately needs on a day-to-day basis.
“As a result of Jackson’s selfish and callous thefts, the victim has not been able to sustain the lifestyle she had previously enjoyed at the care home and was forced to move to a smaller, cheaper room.
“Jackson has never once showed remorse, or attempted to apologise to the victim, who trusted her and believed Jackson was a friend.”