A 74-year-old woman who robbed thousands of pounds from her dying dad who suffered from dementia has avoided going to jail.
Jeanette Lee siphoned the cash from her father's accounts and splashed it on raunchy lingerie store Ann Summers and going to pubs.
While her father was unaware and living in a care home, his scheming daughter stole a total of £63,430 from her own flesh and blood.
At Derby Crown Court this week, the prosecution revealed how from the total amount they could only match £25,000 with Jeanette.
The pensioner from Chesterfield was handed an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, according to Derbyshire Live.
Judge Shaun Smith QC said: “It is always sad to see any person in the dock charged with a criminal offence but you are there having reached the age of 74 and having never been in trouble before and that is even sadder.
“Between 2015 and 2017, you accept that you helped yourself to money you would have got anyway upon your father’s death.
“He developed dementia in 2009 and (in 2015) you were appointed in charge of his affairs. What you did did not affect the quality of his life or make things difficult for him as his income allowed him to be comfortable in the care home.
“It had no detrimental affect on him but that you were entitled to the money in due course is no reason to help yourself to his money.”
Hal Ewing, prosecuting, said Lee, of Chesterfield, was put in charge of her father’s affairs in 2015 and for the next two years began taking money from him.
He said the Office of Public Guardian, a Government department which helps people to stay in control of decisions about their health and finance, took her responsibility away from her and investigated the missing cash.
Mr Ewing said: “She said she used some expenditure to help her father and spent other amounts in bars and at Ann Summers.”
The defendant, of Wingerworth Way, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position. As part of the suspended sentence she was handed a four-month curfew, monitored by an electronic tag which will be fitted to her wrist, confining her to her home address between 7pm and 7am each day.
David Farley, mitigating, said that curfew would allow his client to go to her to go to her granddaughter’s wedding in late August.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
