She was meant to help the pensioner in her home.

But callous home help Gillian Kennedy stole almost £20,000 in savings from frail Margaret Senior, 87, after finding the cash hidden on top of a wardrobe.

Now Kennedy has been jailed.

Kennedy started going to Mrs Senior’s home three times a week from July 2014 after she was diagnosed with dementia and was becoming increasingly frail.

Nicola Quinney prosecuting told a jury at Leeds Crown Court last month prior to that Andrew Westerman, a family friend who was staying with her while working, had tried to persuade the pensioner to bank her savings but she did not want to.

He had counted the cash which was in bundles of £1,000 and was hidden under a piece of wallpaper on top of Christmas decorations on the wardrobe, last checking the £17,000 in December 2013.

After that she was too frail to reach the top of the wardrobe and would put money elsewhere in the house which when he found he would put into her bank account.

Miss Quinney said three months after Kennedy started work, doing two and a half hours on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at her home, the pensioner had a fall and had to go into a care home to recuperate.

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Mr Westerman thought he should check the wardrobe in case some of that money was needed to pay for care home fees and found that all the money had gone.

He also estimated she would have had at least a couple of thousand pounds surplus pension left in the house but did not find any and informed the police.

Inquiries showed that between July and December 2014, £19,585 in cash was paid into Kennedy’s account and that some had then been used to pay off part of the mortgage in the name of her partner Patrick Sean Hodge. In the two years prior to July 2014 only £475 in cash had been paid in.

Kennedy, 36 of Little Green Lane, Heckmondwike was found guilty by the jury of theft and converting criminal property and was jailed for two and a half years.

Hodge, 46, of the same address was found guilty by the jury of converting criminal property and he was jailed for nine months.

Sentencing Kennedy, Recorder Nigel Sangster QC said when she was arrested she had given “contradictory and implausible” accounts of where the money had come from into her account.

He said the jury had not believed the series “of ridiculous defences” but decided instead she was a “thoroughly dishonest woman who had no hesitation in stealing from a vulnerable lady.”