Family friend guilty of £1,700 bank card fraud
A carer has been found guilty of siphoning £1,700 in one month from the bank account of the severely disabled friend she was supposed to be looking after.
Scheming Judith Jones, aged 63, collapsed in the dock after a jury convicted her of using the bank card of Parkinson's Disease and Muscular Dystrophy sufferer Linda Hickman to illegally withdraw the cash.
She had been trusted to help with the vulnerable victim's finances after going out with her brother Terry for 39 years and had been given her bank card PIN number.
Jones had been allowed to withdraw spending money for wheelchair-bound Miss Hickman. But the callous carer pocketed more money she secretly withdrew on the card, revealed prosecutor Mr Scott Coughtrie.
The deception was uncovered when Miss Hickman saw a bank statement that arrived at her Bilston home while Jones was off sick.
A later update of the bank book disclosed cash was still being taken from the account. Police inquiries focussed on six withdrawals totalling £1,700 and a further unsuccessful bid to take out a further £100 from cash machines in Bilston between March 16 and April 15 last year. Jones was pictured by CCTV cameras close to the relevant cash machines within four minutes of three of those transactions.
She told the jury during her three day trial that this was a "coincidence" and added: "The only thing I have done is to care for her."
But Jones, of Grange Road, Coseley, was convicted of committing fraud on all seven of the suspect withdrawals by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court and was remanded on bail until November 23.
Judge Martin Walsh told her: "All sentencing options will be open to me on the next occasion."
