A callous carer wept in court as she was sentenced for stealing thousands of pounds from a vulnerable elderly woman she was supposed to look after.
Nicola Brimage, helped herself to almost £6,000 of the 78-year-old pensioner's money she was meant to be in care of.
The 32-year-old left the woman “devastated” by her crime and worryingly in her overdraft.
Brimage was described in court as being “as low as it gets” but rather stupidly spent the money on eBay, Amazon and Paypal, with her own name and email address, making it easy for police to trace her fraud.
The 32-year-old claimed she “couldn’t stop” and “just kept on spending” the money of her victim, a housebound woman with Parkinson’s disease, according to Livepool Echo.
Brimage, of Gautby Road, Bidston, narrowly escaped going straight to jail when she was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday, March 8.
When a heartbreaking victim impact statement was read in court, Brimage sobbed in the dock.
Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, said: “The victim said she placed a lot of trust in Nicola. She liked her, respected her and appreciated the things she had done for her. When she found out Nicola had stolen all this money from her, she was devastated.
“She thought she could trust Nicola and her other carers. She was embarrassed she had been taken for a fool by someone who took advantage of her vulnerability.”
He quoted the victim, who said: “Sometimes my carers are the only people I see in a day and since this happened, I’ve been left feeling worried that I shouldn’t trust them anymore.”
Mr Blasbery added: “She said she once lent Nicola £50, when she said she was short of cash. Instead of appreciating the gesture, she took advantage of her, stealing from her more than 300 times.”
He quoted the victim, who said: “If Nicola had needed money she just had to ask me. She didn’t need to steal from me.
“I understand carers are not well paid. I think the job they do is amazing. I’ve always appreciated everything my carers have done for me.
“I feel taking advantage of elderly people is cruel and as low as it gets.
“One day Nicola will be old and vulnerable too. I hope she doesn’t find herself the victim of a younger person taking advantage of her and stealing from her.
“I really hope that Nicola has learned an important lesson from this and will change her ways in the future.”
The court heard although it was against the rules of the care agency she worked for, Brimage started helping her victim with shopping, who provided her cash card and PIN, and trusted her to visit ATMs and withdraw cash.
The theft, between February 2021 and July 2021, was exposed when NatWest contacted the woman to say she had gone into her overdraft.
Mr Blasbery said the victim in turn contacted her son, who checked bank statements and compiled a spreadsheet, which he gave to the police.
Officers spoke to Amazon, eBay and PayPal, who discovered Brimage had used her own name and email account when making £5,948.50 of purchases.
When officers arrested Brimage at her home on September 8, they discovered items bought online.
Mr Blasbery confirmed none of these were “essential items for living” and were “general household goods and effectively some luxury items”.
When interviewed by police, Brimage said her victim had asked her to withdraw £250 in cash on several occasions and had given her the card and PIN.
Mr Blasbery said she claimed after making a payment for the victim on her phone the card details must have been saved and when making payments to PayPal and eBay, she had clicked on those details “by mistake”.
However, when confronted with the evidence she confessed.
Mr Blasbery said: “She stated she didn’t realise how much she had spent. She said she just kept on spending.”
The prosecutor said “thankfully” NatWest had reimbursed the victim in full.
Brimage, who admitted theft, had no previous convictions.
Ben Berkson, defending, said: “Nothing I will say will underplay the greedy and callous crime here.”
He said Brimage was a young, bright woman who had spent a lot of her adult life “dutifully caring for the vulnerable”, but had been at “a very low point” last year.
Mr Berkson said: “Downtrodden, controlled, shamed and abused by a previous long term partner, she sadly instructs me she felt worthless and it was that lack of confidence and hope which switched off her usual sense of right and wrong.”
The lawyer suggested Brimage had strong personal mitigation, including her previous good character, and had been referred for counselling since she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2019 and was on prescribed medication for both those conditions and a degenerative spinal disease.
He said Brimage was on benefits after losing the job with the first care agency, and being dismissed by another care agency in Wirral after she was declared unfit to work, but she was now job hunting again.
Mr Berkson said: “Clearly the loss of her job and a career she treasured has been a horrible loss for her as well.”
He added his remorseful client “feels terrible” and she had “learned a lesson and is committed to self-growth and putting a positive stamp back on society”.
The judge, Recorder Michael Blakey, said the victim was “extremely vulnerable” and “wholly dependent” upon healthcare professionals and their support.
He told Brimage: “She trusted you as a person who would do your best to help her and certainly not steal anything from her.”
Recorder Blakey said Brimage decided to help herself to the woman’s money and bought products online, “virtually none of them goods you actually needed, some of them luxury items”.
He said: “You accept by virtue of your guilty plea that what you did was wrong. It was in fact worse than that. It was a breach of trust, that lady’s trust.
“It was a disgraceful way to behave as a healthcare professional.”
However, the judge said she was of previous good character, accepted she had let herself down “extremely badly”, had strong personal mitigation and he believed there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.
Recorder Blakey said: “It seems to me counterproductive to send you immediately to custody.”
The judge handed her a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, with a 15-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and 80 hours of unpaid work.
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