THE downfall of a £100,000-a-year financial advisor, who once lived in a £450,000 house and put her three children through private school, ended in a prison sentence yesterday.

Denise Baran, bankrupt and £90,000 in debt after a divorce, duped an 82-year-old client out of £9,000 so she could pay her bills.

Yesterday, she admitted deception and fraud when she appeared before magistrates at Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Kate Dodds, prosecuting, said Baran, 49, had been an independent financial advisor for 14 years when, in May last year, she visited the Knaresborough home of Mathea Clarke to discuss the extension of a bond.

Baran, of Kingsley Road, Holt Park, Leeds, who had set up the original bond for Mrs Clarke, persuaded her not to fill in a £9,000 cheque, saying she did not have the Legal and General account number to hand.

Instead, she made it out to herself and paid it into an account that had dwindled to 47p.

When the fraud came to light, she was suspended and then sacked, and told police she had used the money to pay debts.

Helen Camidge, in mitigation, said that apart from a caution for shoplifting in April last year, Baran had never been in trouble with the law. She had established a good relationship with Mrs Clarke and deeply regretted having betrayed a position of trust.

Sentencing Baran to three months in prison, the presiding magistrate, Catherine Nickols, told her it was the only option after she had abused the trust placed in her by a vulnerable, elderly person.