31 July 2023 , 17:56
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A heartless carer, who was already suspended for stealing money from a vulnerable woman, struck again when she "despicably" stole £4,360 using a dementia patient's bank card.
Faye Collins, a carer for elderly people with vulnerable conditions such as dementia, stole the money over eight separate withdrawals from one of the patients she cared for, between February 25 and March 18 2020, a court has heard. She was given the card to buy the woman cigarettes and brandy using the contactless feature. On March 14, the patient's daughter-in-law used the woman's bank card to do her weekly shop but the card was declined when she tried to withdraw £60 from an ATM.
Faye collins, a carer for the elderly, was jailed for two counts of fraudCollins, 25, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court this morning, in relation to two counts of fraud from when she worked as a walk-to-work carer at Best Care Liverpool in October 2019. James Rae, prosecuting, said the reality was the £60 would have taken the card past its daily withdrawal allowance of £500.
Although Collins was never given the PIN code and instead was told to use tap and pay, the pin was written in the victim's notebook. When the victim's family investigated they found the page had been ripped out, reported the Liverpool Echo.
The defendant even reported the card as missing to try and cover her tracks - and when a replacement card arrived on March 17 she went and made a new withdrawal. An investigation by the bank found there had been regular withdrawals on the card and each one had taken place when the defendant attended.
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Investigations found CCTV evidence of the defendant using the card and the following day she was suspended from her job by Best Care Liverpool. The victim's bank, Halifax was satisfied the withdrawals were fraudulent so reimbursed the money, but the defendant had benefited from the money for a period of nearly a month.
In May of the same year the defendant, who was still suspended from her job, visited the home of a dementia patient who she had previously "cared" for. The woman's neighbours raised the alarm after they observed the out-of-hours visits from Collins, noting her unusual behaviour and the fact she was not wearing a uniform.
Mr Rae said between May 12 and May 16 Collins had entered that victim's house using a key taken from the lock box. She had taken the nan's card and gone to ATMs and made a number of withdrawals to the amount of £880. Due to the suspicious behaviour, the combination on the lock box was changed, meaning the defendant could not gain entry when she returned on May 17.
Collins, of Hare Croft, West Derby, was interviewed in late May 2020. Mr Rae said the defendant avoided a second interview until she was arrested and interviewed in July of the same year. The prosecuting barrister said the defendant told a "pack of lies" and looked to blame others including two of her co-workers.
Mr Rae said Collins had "abused her power and targeted vulnerability". He added "faith and trust was put in her" by the victims and their families and she had betrayed her position. He added the second victim sadly died in December 2021. The defendant was found unanimously guilty by a jury in June of this year in the face of "overwhelming evidence", according to Mr Rae. The defendant stole a total of £5,240.
In mitigation, defending barrister Cheryl Mottram said her client was a young woman with no previous convictions. Collins was 21 and 22 when she committed the crimes and was a low risk of re-offending, she told the court. Ms Mottram said her client has two young children, aged three and five, and had been separated from them while she had been held in prison following the guilty verdict.
The defence said her client's behaviour "has been viewed as despicable by the public and rightly so" - but felt a custodial sentence could be suspended to avoid disrupting the children's lives.
However, his Honour Judge David Swinnerton disagreed, branding the mum's actions as "despicable". He said Collins, who told police she had no money problems, had "stolen the money out of sheer greed".
He said she had been "thoroughly dishonest" throughout the police investigation, had continued to deny her involvement and tried to blame her colleagues. Judge Swinnerton said he was going to treat the crimes against the second victim as the lead offence, because, while less money had been taken, Collins had no right to be in her house due to her ongoing suspension.
He sentenced Collins to 24 months in prison for the offence against the first, and six months for the second. He also ordered the sentences to be served consecutively. Collins, who appeared via video link from HMP Styal wearing glasses and a Disney t-shirt, was jailed for 30 months in total.
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