Carer who stole 'entire savings' of 80-year-old woman with dementia given suspended sentence at Derry Magistrate’s Court

A carer who stole the ‘entire savings’ belonging to an 80-year-old woman with dementia has been given a suspended sentence, at Derry Magistrate’s Court. Sandra McDaid, 54, of Ballynarrig Road in Limavady, admitted theft (by an employee) and four counts of fraud by false representation between December 8-11 of last year. Her charge sheet stated that she withdrew money from the injured party’s post office pension account over four days. A Public Prosecution Service (PPS) representative said police responded to a report of post office fraud involving money that belonged to an ’80-year-old lady who suffers from dementia’. The injured party’s daughter was spoken to and confirmed the money ‘had been missing for a while’. She told police it was her mother’s ‘entire savings’ of £1,219.72 which had been withdrawn in four transactions. PSNI investigations led them to McDaid who was ‘believed to be the carer for this elderly person’ and she admitted the offences during police questioning. Defence barrister Stephen Mooney acknowledged that the court would take an ‘exceptionally dim view’ of such ‘egregious’ offending. Aggravating factors included the victim’s circumstances as a ‘vulnerable’ lady, he added. Mr Mooney acknowledged that the court would take an ‘exceptionally dim view’ of such ‘egregious’ offending. Aggravating factors included the victim’s circumstances as a ‘vulnerable’ lady, he added. The ‘rationale or reason’ for committing the offences was ‘important’, Mr Mooney explained, as he had been instructed by McDaid that she had been contacted via Facebook by an unknown person requesting money for his child’s ‘blood transfusions’. Firstly the 54-year-old was said to have ‘wired’ £1,000 of her own money to this man and, when he came back a number of months later asking for more, McDaid decided to access the victim’s money. District Judge Barney McElholm said the 54-year-old ‘foolishly believed a conman’ whose only aim was to extract the ‘maximum amount of money’ from her by ‘spinning a sad story’. The District Judge did however say that what McDaid did was ‘wrong’ even though she may have thought she was ‘acting for the greater good’. A sentence of four months in prison, suspended for eighteen months was imposed and the 54-year-old was ordered to pay £1,219.72 in compensation to the victim.