A woman bought tickets for a Robbie Williams concert in Paris with money meant for her dying dad’s care home fees.
Sarah Ferguson, 50, stole more than £4,000 from 79-year-old James Barnes after being entrusted with his savings.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how the mum drained his bank account before running up a £3,000 debt on his credit card.
Edmund Haygarth, prosecuting, said Ferguson and her brother Neil Barnes were granted control over his finances in 2011.
Mr Barnes later moved into a care home in Oxton, Wirral, where he died on February 13, 2015.
His pension from Vauxhall Motors was paid into a bank account intended to cover his care costs and expenses.
Mr Haygarth said: “On October 10, 2014, it was more than £7,395 in credit. By the end of the year it was £2,475 overdrawn.
“The reason for that is because Sarah Ferguson had been spending that money.”
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Ferguson, of Mount Park, Bebington stole £930 in November 2014 to buy two tickets to see the pop star. He performed in France in March 2015.
She was confronted by her brother after he noticed payments “which he thought had no relevance to his father’s welfare”.
Mr Haygarth said: “She admitted spending the money but said she would settle the debt and any outstanding fees.
“Her brother expected that would be the end of the matter, but sadly she continued to spend his money.”
Sarah Ferguson leaves Liverpool Crown Court.
Ferguson withdrew £450 in cash between December 11 and 12 and then used her dad’s credit card until January 15, 2015.
Her brother reported her to the police but she claimed the theft was “legally but not morally wrong”.
Mr Haygarth said: “She had no income at that point and she made the observation her father would have given her the shirt off his back.
“She then accepted it was both legally and morally wrong that she had not paid her father’s care home fees.
“She was asked how he would feel left unable to pay bills and was honest enough to admit ‘he would be mortified’.”
Ferguson admitted three counts of theft. She has no previous convictions.
Mr Haygarth said the Crown dropped nine other allegations of theft as Ferguson was paying back the money out of the inheritance Mr Barnes’ left her in his will.
The Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts, Liverpool Crown Court.
Jeremy Hawthorne, defending, said unemployed Ferguson had been living in Mr Barnes’s house.
He said her brother lived in the Home Counties and she looked after her dad before visiting him regularly at the care home.
Mr Hawthorne said she spent the money on herself and her children and “things simply got out of control”.
He said: “She never went to the concert. She has no explanation as to why she bought the tickets.”
Ferguson told the court she was diagnosed as bipolar and currently taking lithium.
Recorder David Turner, QC, said he was able to suspend a four-month jail sentence for two years because the money would be paid back.
The judge said: “You were in a particular position of trust – a position of trust which you abused. You should be thoroughly ashamed of what you did.
“You helped yourself to over £7,000 – some of it legitimate, some of it not – out of the bank account, and when that could no longer be used, you helped yourself to the credit card.
“You accept your father would have been mortified – him being a hard working man.”
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/