Woman who defrauded her late mother will pay £43 back

Elizabeth Bond appeared via video link from HMP Askham Grange, near York, for a three-minute confiscation directions hearing at Bradford Crown Court.

She was jailed at the same court for 28 months in March for misusing money that should have been funding care for her sick mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

In making the confiscation order Mr Recorder Andrew Dallas said: “I declare that the benefit accruing to the defendant from her criminal conduct in this case is £93,693.85. I declare that the currently available amount is £43.83. I therefore make a confiscation order in that sum.”

In answer to a query about the value of a car belonging to Bond, prosecutor Abdul Shakoor said the vehicle, with £190,000 miles on the clock, was worth just £200.

He said: “It seems to have been discounted when one takes into account the cost of selling the car. It wouldn’t have amounted to anything in reality.”

Defending, Jessica Strange asked for three months to pay with a seven-day period of default.

Bond, 50, formerly of Hardy Meadows in Skipton, assumed responsibility for the care of her mother, Sylvia, in January 2012 when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 69.

She 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,  who died late last year, 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.

She 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 around £74,000 in the bank account being managed by Bond, and she had already bought herself a car, furniture, and PlayStation games.

A Playstation controller (Image: Pixabay)

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, 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.

The case was heard at Bradford Crown Court

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 taken.

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 Paul Reid said her fraudulent activity was conducted over a sustained period of time “clearly in the knowledge that it was fraudulent”.

He said her mother 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.”

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