A GARDENER who fleeced a 97-year-old widow of £170,000 from her life-savings has been jailed.

Russell Joy befriended Mary Brady, a vulnerable woman who lived alone, and repeatedly stole from her leaving her without enough money to pay bills. Bournemouth Crown Court heard that Joy, aged 45, of Shapwick, near Blandford, convinced Mrs Brady to hand over bank details and also write him a cheque for £100,000. His crimes were only discovered when Mrs Brady’s family started looking into her finances in order to pay for nursing care.

The court heard Joy had been working for Mrs Brady, from Broadstone, as a gardener. The offences began in December 2014 when Joy set-up a direct debit from Mrs Brady’s account to pay for his car insurance. The payments stopped in April 2016 when the offences were discovered – but by that point she had already paid £1,052.15. 

Between the same period Joy also made more than 100 cash withdrawals of £300 from Mrs Brady’s account – totalling £32,100.

It left the bank account with “insufficient funds” for Mrs Brady to cover her bills.

The court heard Joy also pretended to be Mrs Brady’s grandson to convince insurance company Aviva into cashing out Mrs Brady’s investment bonds worth around £200,000. Joy then wrote himself a cheque for £100,000 which he had signed by Mrs Brady. Cheques totalling £23,460 were also cashed.

And on November 9, 2015 he took £12,495 to pay for a Land Rover. The court heard he used the money to pay for lavish trips to Hong Kong and Thailand and 12 designer watches.

Mrs Brady died earlier this month on July 8, just before her 99th birthday.

A victim impact statement detailed how she had been left “shattered” after discovering how much had been stolen.

Judge Peter Johnson said Joy’s crimes could only be described as “despicable”. 

“You systematically plundered her accounts in an act of unadulterated, cynical greed, then used that money to live a life of luxury to pay for flights, watches and holidays,” he added.

“At one stage you even stooped so low to withdraw cash when she was in the hospital.

“She was an incredibly vulnerable person who died recently thinking she had been taken for a fool.”

Joy was jailed for five years and one month for six counts of fraud by abuse of position.