A CROOKED carer fleeced a disabled pensioner out of thousands of pounds and went on spending sprees to spruce up her home, a court heard.

Gemma Dodds used the 69-year-old's debit card to buy furnishings and electrical goods from shops and online mail order companies.

The jobless mother-of-one was yesterday jailed for 12 months for what a judge at Teesside Crown Court called a callous breach of trust.

Dodds worked for a company called Caremark and was employed to look after the man from Redcar - who was bed-ridden and needed daily help.

Prosecutor Adrian Dent said the pensioner regarded Dodds as a friend and trusted her implicitly, and now feels angry, hurt and let-down.

The court heard how she defrauded more than £7,500 during the con, and told police she was mixed up because her partner was dying of cancer.

Nicole Horton, mitigating, told Judge Sean Morris that one of the purchases was a mattress to make her boyfriend more comfortable.

Dodds, who lived in Broadway West, Redcar, also took out credit and obtained cards in the name of the former tenant of the house.

She bought clothing, curtains, lampshades, sportswear, trainers and solar lights, and paid off bills to BT and Brighthouse, said Mr Dent.

He told the court: "The defendant was informed when she started employment it was against company policy to deal with any financial matters for the clients, including shopping and the paying of bills to make sure nobody could ever raise any doubts about their conduct.

"That policy was given in writing to the defendant when she started work, and it seems from what she did is totally disobey that.

"The victim is devastated and angry, according to the manager of Fare Mark. He has obviously lost a considerable amount of money and has been betrayed by someone he regarded as a friend."

Miss Horton said: "She says, in years gone by, had she read about a case like this in the newspapers she would have been disgusted at the behaviour of someone who works in the care industry doing this."

Dodds, now of Ladybank, Doxford Park, Sunderland, admitted seven charges of fraud at an earlier court hearing.

Judge Morris told her: "You fleeced an elderly man here of thousands of pounds, and what makes it worse is that you were in a position of trust.

"He was bed-ridden and ill, and was dependent on his carer. You were in a position of trust and you threw it back into his face.

"There are tens of thousands of people in this country every year who suffer the loss of a loved one."

*We have been asked to point out that when Dodds committed these offences she was no longer working for Caremark.