A 60-year-old woman has been jailed for 18 months after spending £14,500 of her frail uncle's savings on shopping trips.

Sandra Meade said she used the sprees to cope with the grief of losing her mother.

She ran up crippling debts on credit cards buying things she did not need.

And when her bank called a halt, Meade turned her sights on the savings of her 72-year-old uncle, John Irwin.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how Meade had befrended him at a family funeral and took over control of his finances from staff at the rest home where he lived.

Meade, of Lakeside, South Shields, South Tyneside, admitted theft, but Judge John Milford accepted she had not befriended the pensioner purely to get her hands on his money