A FORMER financial adviser who stole over £36,000 from a Huddersfield widow has been jailed.

Mrs Joan Wild described her feelings of betrayal to a court yesterday as she gave a victim impact statement.

And Judge Roger Scott said her husband had been 100% right when he described Steven Yates as "a wrong 'un".

Bradford Crown Court was told that Mr Wild died in 1996, but his wife continued to use Yates as a financial adviser.

Between April, 1999, and November, 2000, he stole £36,450 from her accounts.

Yates, of Elm Court, Kirkburton, who was made redundant from the Prudential company in 2001, pleaded guilty earlier this year to eight charges of false accounting. He also asked for 10 similar offences to be considered.

Jailing him for 22 months yesterday Judge Scott said he used Mrs Wild, who is now in her 70s, as a `nest egg'.

He drew money from her for no better reason than he could not control his own finances.

The judge added: "You have no concept of what you have done. Indeed you don't think you have been dishonest at all.

"You have conned yourself into thinking you would ever repay this money."

Mrs Wild has been fully reimbursed by the Prudential.

The court heard that Yates had raised just over £26,000, which he was ordered to pay back to his former employers.

Yates' barrister, Jeremy Lindsay, urged Judge Scott to consider whether it was in the public interest to jail his client.

He said Yates would be unable to raise the outstanding £10,000 if he lost his current job and his wife would have difficulty paying the mortgage on their home.

But Judge Scott told Yates: "You milked her accounts in the knowledge that she didn't know anything about her finances really.

"It was her husband who looked after things."

Judge Scott said there were countless women in a similar position throughout the country and they had to rely on people such as financial advisers.

"Happily, they can in general terms rely on people such as you.

"But she drew a bad egg when she drew you," the judge added.

"She trusted you implicitly and you knew that you could milk her without any fear of being found out.

"Any idea that this is not a bad case should be forgotten. This is a bad case."

Judge Scott said it was necessary for people to know that they would be dealt with professionally - and, above all, honestly - by financial advisers.