A fraudster who cleaned out an 85-year-old woman’s savings to fund a shopping spree could not resist spending the cash a court ordered her to save to pay back her victim.
Cleaner Louise McGregor funded a seven-month shopping spree after stealing a bank card from an older woman she befriended.
McGregor duped her 85-year-old victim and was only caught when the woman’s bank account had been totally cleaned out.
McGregor, 43, took nearly £5,000 and Perth Sheriff Court was told her victim suffered extreme distress when she discovered her life savings had been stolen.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told McGregor it was a serious crime and in March this year he gave her six months to find the funds to pay back the victim in full. She was also ordered to be of good behaviour. He was told at that stage that she had saved £2,600. But yesterday McGregor returned to court and confessed she had started spending that cash, too.
McGregor had dipped into the cash and spent more than £1,100 of it since she last appeared in court and now had just £1,487 left.
Sheriff Foulis said he wanted the money handed over before October 28 and warned McGregor that she had to start saving the rest, to pay back the full amount. Sentence was deferred.
At an earlier hearing, depute fiscal Bill Kermode said the complainer was 85 and in a frail condition. The accused was employed as a cleaner and part of her duties were to clean the woman’s house. The victim was “shocked to find out that, having worked her entire life, her savings had been plundered”.