Nicola Gavey took advantage of the couple’s deteriorating condition to forge cheques – and stole a total of £50,000.
The 38-year-old committed the offences before and after being arrested and jailed for four months for taking a credit card belonging to another vulnerable elderly patient and using it to steal £1,500.
Guernsey’s Royal Court heard this week that she kept her job with the care company she was working for before going on to commit the second offence.
The offences against the couple were only discovered after the elderly woman died in March last year and her son queried her bank statements.
Gavey was arrested and later pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and one charge of making a false representation.
Jailing her for two and a half years, judge Russell Finch said: ‘Care workers are under a duty of care to protect the interests of vulnerable people and not to steal their money.
‘There were substantial aggravating factors in this case and there has been a clear and merited uplifting of sentence given the previous offence.’
He added: ‘It had been a despicable and wicked plan. People put their trust in carers and every now and again greedy and dishonest people abuse it.’
During the time she had been stealing the money, Gavey went on a holiday to Europe and made large foreign currency exchanges.
However, the court heard that she had also spent some of the money on medical equipment for her son, who had been left with a paralysed arm after being involved in a road accident in 2012.
Her advocate said that the offending had not been borne out of a desire to live a fairytale lifestyle of a celebrity and that she had stolen the cheque book on the spur of the moment.
Water attack
CYBER criminals in Guernsey have tried to hack into an unusual target this week – the island’s water pumping stations. Guernsey Water is now planning to upgrade its system to fend off the attacks. Project engineer Phil Smith said: ‘We have been suffering from cyber attacks so we want to change to something people can’t get into. They see it as a challenge to get in – and when they try it slows things down.’
False claims
A GUERNSEY woman has admitted falsely claiming she was the victim of a sex attack. Stacie-Leigh Honey, of the parish of St Andrew’s, made allegations of rape, indecent assault and gross indecency against a man who was arrested and detained for two hours. The 23-year-old later admitted the claims were false, and pleaded guilty to doing an act which had the tendency to pervert the course of justice. She will be sentenced next month.
Sark power
A SARK group has criticised proposals to install a power cable between Guernsey and the island. Earlier this year Sark’s government, Chief Pleas, announced a £6 million plan to run the cable between the islands. It claimed it would provide power cheaper than that currently produced in Sark. But Sark in Action for Families and Employment said the plans are ‘very thinly thought out’.
