A CARER who “systematically plundered” a dementia sufferer’s bank account of up to £80,000 has been jailed for a year.

Hazel Gant spent £41,000 on gold coins and also wrote a £10,000 cheque for her son in order to help him run a bar in Lanzarote.

Teesside Crown Court heard that 72-year-old Gant continued to take cash from the North Yorkshire woman a month after she was placed into a care home due to a deterioration in her condition.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe said the defendant wrote cheques on the victim’s bank account, forging her signature, and was seen on CCTV cameras using her cash card.

Some of Gant’s spending went on goods she had bought from a television shopping channel, he said.

Mr Newcombe said Gant committed a gross breach of trust against a vulnerable elderly woman over a five year period from 2008 to 2013.

The victim, who suffered from a form of senile dementia, was in her 80s when Gant began caring for her and lived in the Thirsk area. She has since died, aged 92.

There was discussion in the hearing over how much Gant had actually taken with Mr Newcombe setting the figure at £97,281.

But The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton sentenced her on the basis it was between £75,000 and £80,000.

Gant, of Hall Street, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, had no realisable assets and therefore the judge was only able to make a nominal £1 order against her under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Alastair Campbell, mitigating, said Gant, who admitted six counts of fraud by abuse of position, was of previous good character and had worked in the care industry for a considerable time.

He said she had been treated for cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure and, with her age, would struggle if given an immediate jail sentence.

However the judge said he could not accede to Mr Campbell’s request that a suspended jail sentence be imposed.

Judge Bourne-Arton said it had been a “calculated fraud” for a long period of time against a highly vulnerable victim.

The judge also said comments Gant had made in a pre-sentence report in which she appeared to blame someone else did her no credit.