A woman jailed for attacking her nan over cash had subjected her family to theft and threats for more than a year.
Grace Smith was jailed earlier this week after an attack which saw her hold a pillow over her nan’s face to try to get her to give her her bank card.
However, prior to this, the 20 year old had spent months terrorising her family in Liverpool to try to get them to give her money.
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At one point, she would demand money from her nan daily.
Christopher Hopkins, prosecuting, said she had targeted a number of members of family in the months running up to the robbery of her nan.
Her nan, Mary Smith, told police officers she began to notice a change in Grace’s behaviour when she was 14 years old, as she became increasingly aggressive.
However, there was a significant escalation when, in February 2019, the then 18 year old asked for her grandmother’s card to buy a meal from McDonalds.
She copied the card details and then spent £562 on delivery apps, mainly Uber Eats, until her nan cancelled the card.
The same thing happened on a worse scale just over a year later.
Ms Smith asked her granddaughter to get her some cash but told her to bring the card back immediately.
Again, she copied the card details but this time she spent £3,492 between April and June 2020, with majority of it being spent on Amazon, Uber Eats and Netflix.
Mr Hopkins said that when Ms Smith realised what had happened she told officers she “did not have the courage to count” all the money that had been stolen because of the devastation she already felt over the crime.
Yet at this point she was also being subjected to daily requests for money from Grace Smith, who would come to her house regularly.
The court heard neighbours called the police on occasions as she would come to her nan’s home and shout, bang on the door and demand cash.
She also targeted her mother. When staying one night at her mother’s house, she took an onyx ring that had belonged to her grandfather.
The ring was pawned by Smith but her mother realised it was missing and managed to alert police in time for it to be recovered.
She was eventually hit with a restraining order stopping her from contacting both women - but during 2021 she began to breach the order, approaching her nan as she was on the way home from the shops.
Smith became increasingly emboldened, asking her nan for money and following her home, sometimes into the house.
Then, just a few days after her most recent visit, Smith robbed her grandmother in her own home.
After breaking in, she threatened her nan before holding a pillow over her face until she gave her her card and managed to get £200 off it.
Prosecutors said Mary Smith had been left devastated by the attacks, while Smith's mum, Deborah, spoke of her pain at having her own daughter prosecuted after the theft of the ring but said she "could no longer live like this".
Sentencing her, Judge David Potter said numerous traumatic events in Smith's life meant there was significant mitigation for her but said the effects of her campaign of theft against family members had been significant even before it escalated dramatically with the robbery.
Judge Potter said: “I hope that this sentence does mark a turning point in your life and that you use this sentence constructively but only you can decide what you do now.”
Smith, of HMP Styal, was sentenced to six years and two months in custody for a range of offences including robbery, theft, fraud and numerous breaches of a restraining order.
