THE carer of a 94-year-old plundered her life savings after stealing her bank card and going on a five-month spending spree, a court heard yesterday.

Stacey Hunter, from Darlington, emptied the account of more than £13,000 - including three withdrawals totalling £750 in just five hours.

The crime came to light when the pensioner’s daughter found an unopened bank statement, and discovered purchases which could not have been hers.

The card had been used to buy cinema tickets, get things from Amazon, and there had been a £250 spend at Boozebusters, prosecutor Shaun Dryden said.

Mr Dryden told Teesside Crown Court: “It was obvious they were fraudulent transactions. They could not have been legitimate for her mother.”

When the victim was spoken to by police, she recalled a day last summer when the card arrived in the post and 32-year-old Hunter snatched it from her.

The suspect initially denied being responsible for the thefts, but confessed when confronted with CCTV footage from shop and cashpoint machines.

She refused to reveal what she had spent the money on, but her lawyer told the court that she was embarrassed to admit a heroin addiction relapse.

In a statement, the daughter of the victim - who died in February - said she felt guilty for introducing Hunter to her mother as an unofficial carer.

She told how her mother was “shattered and constantly crying”, and added: “I am devastated that this has happened to her at such a fragile age.”

Hunter, of Starmer Crescent, Darlington, admitted theft and fraud, and was given a 20-month suspended prison sentence with drug treatment and testing.

Judge Deborah Sherwin said it was “a close-run thing” and she was saved from jail because she is the sole carer of her six-year-old daughter, and had been out of trouble for six years.

Zoe Pasfield, mitigating, told the court that Hunter had also been looking after her own elderly grandmother at the same time, and “struggled to cope”.

“She had used heroin in the past and had tried to overcome it and almost succeeded, but last August her benefits had been stopped and she was in a difficult financial position. She says herself, her need for heroin simply over-rode every other consideration she had,” said Miss Pasfield.

“That situation has now changed, and very much for the better.”