Two West Yorkshire carers jailed for £500,000 fraud
Two carers have been jailed for defrauding an elderly woman with Parkinson's disease out of £500,000.
Wendy Bell and Amanda Carroll were sentenced with four others at Bradford Crown Court for the fraud against 92-year-old widow Audrey Hammond.
The pair overcharged Mrs Hammond for her home care.
Bell, 57, from Cullingworth, was jailed for three years and six months. Carroll, 44, of Shipley, was sentenced to three years and five months.
Bell's daughter, Lisa Bell, 30, Linda Mynott, 60, and Alice Barker, 59, all received suspended jail sentences.
A sixth carer, Caron Gilbert, 33, was handed a 12-month community order.
Judge Colin Burn told said the overcharging was "so excessive that it must have been dishonest".
"There could be, in the crown's case, no other explanation," he said.
Wendy Bell and Carroll played a leading role in the fraud of Ms Hammond, of Cracoe in Skipton, North Yorkshire, the judge added.
He said: "You must take the central responsibility for a scheme which exposed Mrs Hammond, wealthy though she was, to massive financial loss resulting from blatant dishonesty."