Couple jailed for fleecing dementia victim, 91

Lesley Reeve, 56, and husband Andrew, 55, spent all but £3,000 of her godmother Joan Killen’s £130,000 after the pensioner allowed him to become a signatory on her bank accounts.

The judge said they were guilty of a gross breach of trust and, although they had been hard-working throughout their lives, he branded them “utterly materialistic”.

The couple cleared debts, bought a car for one of their two sons and spent thousands on electrical goods and presents for themselves, Teesside Crown Court heard during their trial last month.

They also spent some of the money on converting the garage of their home in Hartlepool into a wet room and gym, but told police the work was really to make it into a bedroom for “Aunty Joan’’, who by then was living in a care home.

They claimed they loved Miss Killen and said she was happy for them to spend her savings as they saw fit, as she was going to leave them everything in her will.

While the Reeves spent tens of thousands on their family home, Miss Killen lived in a sparsely-decorated room in a care home.

On one occasion she asked for personal effects to be brought in, but when the Reeves failed to do so a member of staff went out and bought her some earrings and a jewellery box.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, sentenced the couple as they held hands in the dock, telling them: “You were found guilty by the jury on compelling evidence.

“What the jury concluded you did was to strip all the monies that your godmother, Mrs Reeve, had.

“You did so for your own selfish needs.”

Miss Killen, who is still alive, was now relying on the state to pay for her care costs, the court heard.

“You believed, and you may be right in believing, that she was going to leave all her money to you. But you pre-empted that process by deciding to take the money for yourself, at a time when you felt you needed it.”

The judge accepted some money was spent doing up her home, as well as theirs, but he said they expected to one day inherit that too, and were renting it out in the meantime for themselves.

“You claimed you loved her, that you cared for her, that you effectively nurtured her and that you did nothing to harm her,” the judge said. “You did none of that.

“You have shown throughout these proceedings not one ounce of remorse.

“I have seen nothing, not even a flicker of regret for what you have done, indeed, quite the reverse.”

The judge acknowledged jail on two people of previous good character and of their age would be hard, and they had lost their good name.

Mr Reeve had claimed it was a coincidence that when police arrested the couple in a dawn raid, the gym contained a treadmill and exercise ball, and maintained the conversion was intended for Miss Killen.

That story was rejected by the jury who convicted them of stealing £95,000 in savings, and theft of rent money they made from getting a tenant to move into her property when she went into care after a fall.

Mrs Reeve was also convicted of stealing £2,940 in pension payments.

Paul Abrahams, defending Mr Reeve, told the court that the couple will find it very difficult to be apart in prison having spent their lives together.

The engineer was also likely to lose his job, Mr Abrahams said.

“Life will be very difficult for Mr Reeve when he is released,” the barrister said.

The couple face a proceeds of crime hearing which will see them stripped of their assets, said Nigel Soppitt, defending Mrs Reeve.

“She will lose her reputation, her assets including her home, her self-esteem and perhaps her mental health,” he said.

The couple’s punishment was on a “Biblical scale”, Mr Soppitt said.

“It’s going to happen to them, what they have done to somebody else.”