A conwoman was jailed for five years yesterday for robbing her childhood guardian angel of half a million pounds to feed her gambling addiction.

Theresa Bragg, 43, from Middlesbrough, tracked down wealthy widow Anita Fowell who had been her housemother in a children's home run by nuns.

Divorcee Bragg told Mrs Fowell that she had been left a fortune in a businessman's will but she needed money to pay lawyers because his ex-wife was contesting it.

Mrs Fowell's husband John, who was a director of Mid Sussex District Council, was killed in a car crash in February 1997 leaving her with a mortgage-free house worth £500,000 in Hayward's Heath, a widow's pension of several thousand pounds a month and life policies.

She was told in 1998 that Bragg was the unexpected beneficiary of her former boss Frank Baker, who owned market stalls in Chester and Connah's Quay.

Mrs Fowell, 48, who looked after Bragg and her eight brothers and sisters in the 1970's at Nazareth House in Middlesbrough was delighted for her and she recalled later: "In the light of the type of life she and her brothers and sisters had had no one deserved it more."

Over the next three and a half years Bragg deceived her into parting with £501,936 with almost another £50,000 from a family friend Jason Upton. She has no money to repay any of it.

Bragg made frequent promises to repay the "loans" once she had received the estate. Mrs Fowell was not even insistent that the money was repaid with interest.

By March 2003 Mrs Fowell had used up most of her entire fortune, sold her house in Sussex, had no investments left and she was living in a flat in Middlesbrough.

Bragg claimed that she needed a final £6,000 to see the litigation through to the end, and she asked Mrs Fowell if her friend Mr Upton would help.

Prosecutor David Potter told Chester Crown Court: "Mrs Fowell was desperate.

"She believed that the only way in which she would see any of the hundreds of thousands of pounds she had given to Bragg was if the litigation was successful."

Mr Upton, who had a partner and young family, had inherited £75,000 from his father's estate which was to be used to buy their new home.

Promised a return of £4,000 he was tricked into paying £48,600 into her building society account, and he even got a friend to give him a cheque for £1,000. He had to borrow £40,000 o buy his house and to cash in insurance policies early.

Bragg fobbed him off with excuses when he asked for his money back, but he obtained a copy of the will and he discovered that she had been told in February 2000 that she would be receiving nothing.

Mrs Fowell told police later: "I feel completely devastated over the whole situation.

"Theresa has deceived me into transferring a large sum of money into her accounts over such a long period of time.

"I truly believed that I was helping her secure her future and would have done anything to try and help her.

"As a result of this I am financially ruined. I have managed to buy a small flat for my family to live in but I have to watch what the family spends on a daily basis. I am struggling to save to put my daughter through university.

"If this situation had not happened my husband's investments set aside for the children would have taken care of this.

"I had a very comfortable lifestyle that my husband had worked for. He worked towards saving for the future of his family and this has all been for nothing. I feel my lifestyle is now the complete opposite."

Mrs Fowell added: "I feel that I was very vulnerable at this time following the loss of my husband, and Theresa took advantage of this. "She also knew I was living away from my family and I had little support around me."

Bragg told police: "I was just borrowing money off Anita and said to her once the will's sorted out she'll get all her money back.

"When I found out there was no money in the will I just didn't have the bottle to tell Anita."

She claimed that she was penniless and that she lost her husband of 20 years over it.

She said: "I wish I knew where it all went."

Mr Potter said that she recalled buying half a dozen parrots each costing £500 for herself and friends, took eight foreign holidays in a year, and she lost hundreds of pounds in minutes on amusement arcade fruit machines.

Adrian Dent, defending, said: "It is accepted that these offences were extremely mean, heartless and that they must have visited and continue to visit misery on Mrs Fowell and her family."

Judge Roger Dutton told Bragg: "Your criminal conduct over this period amounts to one of the most despicable, mean and heartless series of offences that I have ever come across.

"This was calculated dishonesty by a plaudible and persuasive woman.

"You played the playboy lifestyle, the casino and one-armed bandit queen lifestyle, and a large amount of Mrs Fowell's money went in slot machines and the rest went on eight continental holidays for you and your friends and was frittered away."

Bragg of Harford Street, Middlesbrough, was jailed for five years after she pleaded guilty to six charges of obtaining property by deception between 200 and last year.