A conman who tricked a solicitor to swindle £5,000 from an elderly woman was due to be sentenced today after a judge said he had “tried the patience of the Court long enough”.

The hearing was adjourned yesterday after Patrick Doran collapsed in the dock at Bradford Crown Court. Judge Peter Benson had deferred sentence in November and again last month so Doran could pay back the money to his victim.

Before Doran arrived at court yesterday, his barrister Kate Batty told Judge Benson the money had been raised, but most of it had been spent.

She said: “Certainly as of September 19 he had managed to get the full sum ready and he contacted those who instruct me to ask how he would go about paying it.”

She said the police officer in the case had been on night duty, at which time Doran could not attend the police station to pay the money because he was on a curfew.

Doran, 51, of Ravenscliffe Avenue, Ravenscliffe, was now left with only £1,000 of the money, said Mrs Batty.

After he collapsed and paramedics were called, she asked Judge Benson to adjourn the case until after October 26, when Doran’s daughter was expecting a compensation payout which would go towards the payment, but he refused the request.

“He has tried the patience of the court long enough,” said the judge. “He has failed to fulfil the terms of the deferment twice now and I am not prepared to adjourn the matter further.”

At a previous hearing Doran was warned if he did not pay back the cash in full he would go to jail.

Mary Cordingley, now 78, had inherited £5,000 from a friend in 2007, the court was told in November. Doran told her he had been working on the friend’s house and took her to the bank, and to the Michael Ryan law firm which issued her cheque.

Posing as her son-in-law he persuaded the solicitors to write a new cheque in the name of P Doran, which he then banked. At the earlier hearing Doran admitted fraud and possessing a bladed article.