Man sentenced for helping late wife steal from dad

Stuart Ross was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court

A man who helped his late wife steal her father's money to buy a house has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Stuart and Lorraine Ross, both 52 and from Washington, took her father's £147,000 insurance pay-out from a motorcycle crash on the pretext of buying him a home but instead bought themselves a property, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Mrs Ross killed herself after the pair were found guilty of theft by jurors in March, judge Julie Clemitson said.

Mr Ross, who the judge said played a secondary role to his wife, was jailed for 16 months suspended for two years.

The judge said Mrs Ross' father received the insurance settlement after being seriously injured and left with significant mobility problems in a motorbike crash in 2006.

'Plain greed'

The judge said Mrs Ross' father received the insurance settlement after being seriously injured and left with significant mobility problems in a motorbike crash in 2006.

The man was living in a flat in Birtley but was struggling with steps at the property, so the money was to pay for a new more suitable home, the court heard.

Judge Clemitson said he may have got more than the £147,000 offered but he was pressured into accepting that amount by his daughter who was in "dire financial straits" and wanted quicker access to it.

The judge said Mrs Ross had wanted to borrow an immediate £10,000 from her father to pay off credit and store card debts and while there were certainly "financial pressures", there was also an "element of plain greed".

The judge said having seen both Mrs Ross and her father give evidence at the trial in March, it was "sadly very easy to see how he could have been manipulated" by Mrs Ross.

Judge Clemitson said Mrs Ross was "strong-minded" and "knew what she wanted [her father] to do", and he could have been "easily bamboozled" by her.

'Unsuitable house'

The court heard the full £147,000 was paid into Mr Ross' account on the basis that the couple would find their victim a bungalow to live in.

Instead they bought a home with stairs on Stanhope in Washington which was "unsuitable" for Mrs Ross' father's needs and was a "house he did not want".

He initially lived there but ended up moving into a rented home while his daughter and son-in-law took over his home, the court heard.

The couple then twice re-mortgaged the house, first for £50,000 and then for £20,000, to buy other properties.

Mrs Ross also got her father to submit a false benefits claim and fabricated a tenancy agreement on his behalf, the court heard.

The theft was discovered when her father found out he would be unable to sell the home, which he believed he owned outright, because of the new mortgages that had been taken out and he only had a "meagre" £12,000 equity left, the judge said.

'Extreme grief'

Judge Clemitson said Mrs Ross had a "higher degree of culpability" than her husband and she had breached a higher degree of trust having been "responsible for safeguarding her father's assets".

She said Mrs Ross had used "sophistication and planning" and taken a "leading role" in the theft.

But Mr Ross, whose bank account was used, would have been aware of the "nature and scale" of the theft and agreed with to assist, "albeit at the direction of his wife".

Judge Clemitson said had Mrs Ross been sentenced, it would have been a starting point of three-and-a-half years' imprisonment.

But she said Mrs Ross "took her own life after the trial" and a death certificate had been seen and approved by the court.

Prosecutor Matthew Hopkins said the victim had suffered a "great deal of emotional stress" from the theft.

In mitigation for Mr Ross, Michael Cahill said his client had been "devastated" by both the conviction and loss of his wife.

"He appears before you in extreme grief and in great distress," Mr Cahill told the judge.

He calculated the overall loss to the victim to be about £90,000 and Mr Ross, of Waskerley Road, was a "secondary party" to the theft.

A proceeds of crime hearing will be held at a future date.