Woman jailed for squandering money meant for care home fees

Elizabeth Bond told social services that money raised from the sale of her mother’s home had run out, which meant the cost of looking after her had to be met by the taxpayer.

In fact, there was still more than £74,000 in the bank account being managed by Bond, and she had already bought herself a car, furniture and PlayStation games.

Sentencing her to 28 months in prison at Bradford Crown Court Mr Recorder Paul Reid said Bond’s mother, Sylvia, who died late last year, had been unaware of the scale of the fraud due to suffering from dementia.

He said: “The victim is not your mother but the public purse, which renders this a most serious offence because you deprived the public purse of £75,000.”

The case was heard at Bradford Crown Court

Prosecutor Abdul Shakoor told the court that Bond, 50, of Hardy Meadows in Skipton, had assumed responsibility for the care of her mother in January 2012 when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 69.

Bond obtained power of attorney in 2014 to manage her mother’s financial affairs and the following year Sylvia Bond was moved into a care home in Sutton in Craven. As a result her home in Skipton was sold for £183,000 to fund her care costs.

The money was transferred into her bank account, which her daughter controlled.

Bond and her then-partner had been living with her mother and so moved into rented accommodation.

In 2016 Sylvia Bond was moved to a new care home, with monthly fees of around £3,000 being paid by her daughter with money from the sale of the house.

In June 2017 social services were told that Sylvia Bond had no savings left to pay care home fees. Social services then took on the payments and tried to recover the cost from Elizabeth Bond, but no money was forthcoming.

Mr Shakoor said: “The truth position, which was not known at that time, was that in fact Mrs Bond still had more than £74,000 in her account.”

A series of investigations, including by the police, between 2017 and 2018 showed Elizabeth Bond had acted fraudulently by making payments for her own living expenses, funding her own lifestyle, and withdrawing cash.

The amount of the fraud was found to be £76,798, which was spent on rent, utility bills, a vehicle costing £8,000, credit card payments, PayPal purchases, furniture, and PlayStation gaming.

A report on Bond’s bank accounts, including credit and debit card transactions, ran to 26 pages.

Mr Shakoor added that Bond took out a £15,000 loan in January 2017 when her mother’s account contained around £80,000 but Bond’s account showed a balance of just £393.76.

After initially denying all wrongdoing in an interview with the police, Bond pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position committed between June 2015 and May 2018.

Mitigating, Miss Susannah Proctor said Bond was the only daughter in a family of five siblings and had taken on sole responsibility for her mother’s care.

She said she was genuinely remorseful for her actions and that she had been naïve in terms of grasping the enormity of how much money she had spent.

She added: “It was not until she was prosecuted that she appreciated how much money in fact she had taken.

“It adds up to a very large amount, which did come as a shock to her.

“She wasn’t spending that money on expensive holidays and luxury items, but day-to-day living but living quite clearly way beyond her means.”

Jailing Bond for two years and four months Mr Recorder Reid said her fraudulent activity was conducted over a sustained period of time “clearly in the knowledge that it was fraudulent”.

He added: “It is my judgement that this offending is so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence can possibly be justified.”

He said Bond would serve half of that sentence before being released on licence.