Mercy for woman in theft from grandparents

Katie Morris used her position as a customer service adviser at an Abbey Bank branch to transfer the money from the retired couple, both 63 and living in Spain.

Morris, of Mayland, Essex, was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for a year after admitting five counts of fraud at the Old Bailey.

She was also ordered to complete 160 hours of community work and attend a drug rehabilitation programme.

Allan Compton, defending, said: "She is deeply ashamed of what she has done. She is in all other respects a decent, well brought-up young lady, who went completely off the rails."

He said her grandparents, Douglas and Brenda Brooks, were "very hurt and upset" by what she had done but did not want to see her jailed. "Their first reaction was, 'If she needed the money, we'd have lent it to her."