A FORMER councillor accused of stealing £46,000 from a vulnerable widower told a jury yesterday: “I think I have improved his life.”

Stephanie Todd is alleged to have plundered the current account of the retired telecoms worker over three years after “taking him under her wing” in 2013.

The prosecution claim the 57-year-old single mum tried to isolate him from others and pressured him into changing his will to leave his estate to her.

But giving evidence, the ex-Richmondshire District Council UKIP representative for Hipswell, said: “I felt responsible for him and I wanted to look after him.”

Ms Todd, a former airline worker and florist shop owner, told Teesside Crown Court she first met the pensioner in Richmond and gave him a lift home.

She said they quickly became friends, she felt sorry for him because he was lonely and his home was squalid and he wore the same clothes almost every day.

Ms Todd got him a place at the St John’s Community Day Centre in Catterick Garrison where she said he was fed well, showered and met people his age.

She told the jury that she had a verbal agreement with the OAP that she should be paid £10 an hour for caring for him, and took about £300 a week from his account.

And she said other regular withdrawals of cash and expenditure on his bank card was because she was treating him “extravagantly” to clothes and food.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe accused her of being “thoroughly dishonest” in her dealings with the former serviceman and his finances by not keeping a record of them.

“I would not say it was dishonest, more careless,” she said. “I have been extravagant in the way I used the card to improve his life. I have improved his life.

“He wanted to spend his money, and that’s what we did. We spent his money and we have had a great life – for three years. Everything I did was with consent.”

Mr Newcombe accused Ms Todd of “getting your hooks” into the pensioner, and failing to draw a line between the use of his money for himself and for her.

She admitted using the debit card for her own shopping, but it might have been “in lieu of payment” and that she sometimes paid for the man’s groceries.

“The temptation could be there for you to use it for yourself or your family?” asked Mr Newcombe. Ms Todd replied: “It could be, but I didn’t.”

The jury heard that she cooked and washed for the pensioner, and did his food shopping, but abused her position of trust as a carer to also steal his money.

When she was arrested at her home in June 2016, police found bank statements – diverted from his previous solicitors – and the pensioner’s cash card.

“There were no big wads of cash in my house, I have not paid off my credit card bills, I have not been on any holidays,” Ms Todd said under cross-examination.

Mr Newcombe asked: “Do you think it would have been prudent to keep records of these withdrawals and expenditure?” Ms Todd replied: “I wish I had now, and perhaps I would not be standing here.”

The prosecutor said: “You are a thoroughly dishonest woman, and whilst you have given some help, you have jumped in with both feet, convinced yourself you know best, and have used this card with reckless abandon to benefit yourself, haven’t you?”

Ms Todd, the daughter of a retired army officer and who spent two years working for a Conservative MEP, responded by saying: “No, I have not benefited at all.”

References from two people who have known her for many years were read to the jury as the defence case came to a close, describing her as “selfless and altruistic”.

Prosecution and defence barrister will make their closing speeches to the jury on Monday before Judge Stephen Ashurst sums up the case.

Ms Todd denies a charge of theft. The trial continues.