A carer from Harrogate has been jailed for three years after defrauding a disabled woman in her care of £18,000 and then going on a shopping spree.
Corina Rose Lyons, 54, tricked the victim, who uses a wheelchair, into handing over her credit card and money from an inheritance, claiming she needed to borrow the money for essential costs.
As part of a “convoluted tissue of lies” Lyons from Pannal Green, convinced the woman to hand over her credit card after telling her she had been offered a job as a code-writer for Sony and needed money for software, York Crown Court heard.
She then went on a £10,000 spending spree, said prosecutor Helen Towers.
Lyons was arrested following the six-year con and denied the allegations – even trying to pin the blame on the victim.
On the day of her trial though, she admitted three counts of fraud.
At the sentence hearing on Thursday, Ms Towers said the victim suffered from a condition which caused her chronic pain.
Lyons, who was working for a Harrogate care group, became one of her carers in 2004. In 2010, Lyons became her sole carer and was trusted by the victim.
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The court heard how Lyons’s deceit had a “devastating” effect on the woman’s life.
She’d been forced to sell her house but was left unable to buy a property in London near her relatives. She ended up having to buy a cheaper property in Scotland where she knew nobody.
Lyons took a total of £18,649 from the victim after spending £9,649 on the victim’s credit card and persuading her to give her two loans.
Lyons – who had previous convictions for 18 offences including fraud, theft from the person and obtaining property by deception.
In 2009 she had been sent to prison for defrauding another woman out of nearly £100,000, had been released from prison in 2010 and immediately set about targeting a new victim.
Mohammed Ayaz Qazi, for Lyons, said she “simply didn’t learn her lesson” from her previous fraud conviction.
Judge Sean Morris described Lyons as an “evil fraudster”. He said:
“You went to prison in 2009 for a near-identical offence, fleecing somebody who trusted you.
“You got your nails into the next victim, who was a woman who suffers from an awful affliction that makes her bed-bound mostly, and certainly wheelchair-bound.
“You knew she had come into an inheritance and you fabricated the most convoluted tissue of lies again and again and again, and that lady was trying to help you, and you were just spending (the money).
“The (victim)…doesn’t trust anybody anymore, especially carers. She should have been enjoying the twilight of her years with loved ones – you ripped that away. You are an evil fraudster.”
