Carer who stole £3,000 from vulnerable man gets sentence cut
A care who systematically stole more than £3,000 from a vulnerable man he was looking after has had his ‘excessive’ prison term slashed by judges after appealing his original sentence.
Cheru Dakari Allen, aged 26, had never been in trouble with police but turned to crime after running up debts due to a cocaine addiction.
Over 10 months in 2015 and 2016, he repeatedly took money from the account of a 35-year-old man with learning difficulties.
He was rumbled when it was spotted some of the withdrawals had been made in the evening, when in fact it was known the victim did not go out alone after 6pm.
When quizzed by police, Allen, of Dabchick Grove, Walsall, admitted what he had done and pleaded guilty to theft.
Inquiries revealed Allen regularly took around £150-a-time in rogue transactions using the man’s bank card and PIN number, either making an entry in the official log
He put his offending down to his cocaine habit and said he was deeply sorry for what he had done.
He was sentenced to 20 months’ jail at Wolverhampton Crown Court last month.
Judge Barry Berlin, who heard Allen’s drug habit was costing him £150 a day, told him: “You had a cocaine habit and set out to steal in an utterly wicked and systematic way.
“This greed was a grotesque breach of trust.”
But Allen saw his 20-month sentence reduced to 14 months by top judges in London on Thursday.
His lawyers told the Court of Appeal that Allen had made great strides in the two years between arrest and sentencing to change his life.
He had beaten his drug addiction and found new work, Lord Justice Simon, Mrs Justice Carr and Judge Mark Brown were told.
Ruling on the case, Lord Justice Simon said the theft was particularly serious because it was committed by a carer.
“It was a theft by someone who was trusted to care for a vulnerable client and abused that trust,” he said.
“It is the type of crime that undermines trust in those who give devoted care to vulnerable people.
“It may also result in suspicion being cast on those who are entirely innocent.”
However, he said the crown court judge had gone too far in sentencing a man of good character who had shown ‘clear remorse’ to 20 months.
“With full credit for guilty plea, the sentence should have been one of 14 months’ immediate imprisonment,” he concluded.
