Post Office worker spared jail after stealing elderly Welsh couple's life savings

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https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north- ... e-27432755

Karen Evans, who blew the money on gambling, tried to shred bank statements to cover her tracks

A Post Office worker, who had been entrusted by an elderly couple to help with their finances, stole tens of thousands of pounds of their life savings, a court has heard.

Karen Evans spent the money stolen from her vulnerable victims, on paying off debts and gambling. She shredded the couple's bank statements as she went along in an attempt to cover her tracks. The deceit was only discovered after the death of one of the victims, reports WalesOnline.

A judge said 51-year-old Evans had deliberately targeted her victims, and he described the offending as "callous". The defendant's barrister said the mother-of-six had worked for the Post Office for 30 years and was "mortified" by what she had done and at finding herself in the dock of a court being sentenced in front of her children.

Regan Walters, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court the victims of the fraud were an elderly Llanelli couple who were described by family members as being very private and careful with their money, being neither lenders nor borrowers.

He said Evans worked in a branch of the Post Office and was trusted by the couple to help with their pensions and other financial matters. As part of this help the defendant was trusted to access the couple's pension payments, take cash for their shopping, and pay the balance into their bank account. She also set up internet banking for them.

The court heard that after the wife of the couple was unable to continue living at home due to dementia and moved into a care home, Evans was entrusted with a key to the house to help the husband.

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The prosecutor said the couple were wary of banks, and following the financial crash in 2010 the couple had withdrawn £50,000 from their savings and hidden it in various locations around their house.

One of the occasion when Evans visited the house she had found a large amount of this previously hidden money and had alerted family members to it.

The prosecutor said following the death of the husband of the couple in 2021 family members found a bank statement on the doormat of the house that showed the couple had a lot less in their Barclays account than expected - when Evans was asked for previous statements so the family could see what had happened, she replied she had shredded them "to stop them falling into the wrong hands".

Police were alerted and an investigation was launched. It was discovered that Evans had transferred almost £61,000 from the couples' account to her own between 2019 and 2021, with the moneys then going out to gambling firms and loan providers. The investigation ultimately found that £68,431 had gone from the couple's Barclays account between June 2016 and December 2021.

The court heard Evans subsequently attended two voluntary interviews with police where she admitted that she began transferring money into her own account because she was struggling financially.

She said she had initially set up online banking to help the couple manage their finances but had subsequently used the facility to transfer money to herself. In a victim impact statement from the couple's nephew which was read to the court, he said his aunty and uncle had always led a very private life and had never been "lenders nor borrowers".

He described Evans as an "opportunist" who had abused a position of trust to "pilfer away the life savings" of the couple in an act that "read like a newspaper headline".

Karen Evans, of Ynys Las, Llanelli, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She has no previous convictions.

David Singh, for Evans, said the "paradox" of the case was that the defendant clearly cared for the couple, and had returned a large amount of "untraceable" cash found in their house but had then transferred money from their account - something that had left a trail. He said the mum-of-six had worked for 30 years for the same employer without any concerns, and the unanswerable question was why she had succumbed and taken the money. The barrister said Evans was "mortified" at what she had done and at finding herself in the dock of a Crown court facing prison in front of her children.

Recorder Neil Owen-Casey said the victims of the fraud were private people who had invested trust in the defendant to help with their finances. He said Evans had deliberately targeted a vulnerable couple in a "callous" course of offending for her own "selfish gain and self preservation", and said he suspected Evans had taken the money from a traceable source because it "put her in a position of power".

With a one-third discount for her guilty pleas Evans was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete 250 hour of unpaid work and do a rehabilitation course.