Care home worker spent resident’s life savings on clothes and curries

A care home assistant stole a 92-year-old patient’s life savings and used it to buy designer clothes and takeaway meals for her friends.

The victim died three months after being robbed of £1200 by Nicola Gordon at the Dalnagar Care Home in Methven.

Gordon, 19, admitted stealing the pensioner’s bank cards from a safe within the home, at Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

The Crown told the court that the victim, who was not named, died within three months of being robbed of her savings by the teenager.

The court was told that Gordon had used the cards to buy designer clothes and jewellery for herself and to treat her friends to takeaway curries.

She spent so much so quickly that bank staff became suspicious about the money being spent in the name of the pensioner.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Gordon: “This is a despicable crime. The matter to which you pled guilty is a mean crime.

“Old folk, at that age, are undoubtedly vulnerable – at least physically and perhaps also mentally – and they deserve respect from everyone.

“They don’t expect to be taken a loan of. It may be that you were egged-on by some friends but you were the person who did the deeds.”

Gordon – who was sacked from Dalnagar Nursing Home – subsequently admitted the crime and has been paying compensation to the victim’s executor of her will at £10 per fortnight.

Gordon, of Drumgrain Avenue, Methven, pled guilty to stealing two bank cards from the nursing home between August 1 and 5, 2009.

She also admitted that between August 1 and 28, 2009, she stole goods and services worth £1200 by pretending she was authorised to use the cards.

Solicitor Neil Davidson, defending, said: “She realises the gravity of the offence and that stealing money from someone of that age is despicable.”

Sentence was deferred for Gordon to continue paying back the money.