A JOBLESS mother-of-two posed as a solicitor and fleeced the partner of a convicted rapist with promises of an appeal to clear his name.

Nikayla Worley saw Raymond Cumiskey in jail on “legal visits” and took fees totalling almost £5,000 from his girlfriend.

Worley was locked up herself as a judge told her: “You are capable of some intelligence, but you’re not as intelligent as you claimed.”

Her victim said: “I’m £4,700 short and I’m no further forward with an appeal. It makes me feel sick and stupid. I trusted her.

“How could I have been taken in by her. It has left me devastated.

“I can’t believe she could drink tea with me in my house, discussing the case, and she kept telling me ‘it’s going to be ok’.

“I don’t understand how she could do this to me at a time when I was already vulnerable. She has destroyed my trust and confidence.”

Worley was smartly dressed on her first prison visit, and told Cumiskey: “I’m your solicitor and I will be looking after your appeal.”

The 30-year-old visited the double-rapist three times behind bars, and got a copy of the original case file and personal notes.

On the third occasion, she claimed an appeal had failed, but for £1,500 she could “find another judge” – which his girlfriend paid.

Payments had already been made, and further requests for money were also answered, prosecutor Emma Atkinson told Teesside Crown Court.

When the Cumiskey’s girlfriend said she wanted to go to the second ‘bogus’ appeal, Worley tired to put her off in a series of texts.

She said it had to be just her and judges, and then claimed the date had been changed - so the woman swapped her day off work.

The girlfriend turned up at court in Middlesbrough and could not find the case listed, so texted Worley, who said it had been switched to Darlington.

Worley rang her and screamed at her, then days later sent a text saying she had not heard the result, with an invoice for £1,800.

By now suspicious, Cumiskey’s girlfriend went to a Citizens Advice Bureau office, and their search showed Worley was not registered as a solicitor.

She said: “It has left me sick to my stomach. I trusted her. She spoke to me about personal matters and I told her all this.”

Worley, of Sorrell Wynd, Newton Aycliffe, admitted a charge of fraud and was yesterday jailed for nine months.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told her: “What you did was absolutely wicked in many respects.

“She had a partner who had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for 12 years. She, therefore, was in a desperate state.

“In that desperate state, she made desperate decisions, bad decisions - namely trusting you.

“You set about a very skilfully-planned fraud to take money from her.

“At each turn, you led her to believe things would be alright, and then took more money off her. That’s why this is a dreadful case.

“It is quite clear your motivation was greed, given how parlous your finances were at the time.”

The court heard Worley was given a 12-month suspended sentence for benefit fraud a year before her fake solicitor con.

Her lawyer, John Nixon, said she suffered a still-birth in October 2012, when she lived in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, and was deeply affected.

“She suffers to this very day,” said Mr Nixon. “The difficulties she labours under today are probably the same ones she had when she was going through separation with her husband and were never fully explored.”

The court heard how Worley took advantage of the situation when her then-boyfriend was chatting to the girlfriend’s brother - a work colleague - about the case.

It now appears as though Worley had lied to him about her qualifications, but he said she would look at the case on behalf of the family.

The former partner was also part of the police investigation, said Mr Nixon, but he was “rightly” not prosecuted because he had no idea of Worley’s lies.

Cumiskey, of Thornaby, near Stockton, was jailed for 12 years in December 2015 after being found guilty of four rapes - two against two different women - and two charges of sexual assault.