Gambler sqandered mother’s money

A gambling addict who systematically squandered just over £15,000 from his elderly mother’s bank account has been jailed for nine months.

In a few months last year Terry McEvoy, 46, regularly withdrew hundreds of pounds from his mother Eugenie’s account leaving only £7.95 in the bank, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Mrs McEvoy had been given power of attorney over her husband’s affairs and had transferred £16,000 into the bank account in April 2010.

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Prosecutor Dave Mackay said McEvoy, who had two previous convictions for stealing from his employers, saw his mother entering her PIN when she withdrew some cash from the account last June.

The unemployed former bus driver, of New Hey Road, Oakes, Huddersfield, later took his mother’s bank card, replacing it with his own, and then went on to make regular withdrawals from that account.

Lawyer Arshad Khan, for McEvoy, told the court his client now accepted that he was a gambling addict.

McEvoy pleaded guilty to stealing the cash from his mother.

Recorder Taryn Turner told him he had shown “a most breathtaking and callous disregard” for his elderly parents, having frittered away the cash and not repaid a single penny.

“You set about plundering that account all for your own gain,” said Recorder Turner.

She added: “There is a degree of deviousness and guile in the way you went about it.”