Mother stole her daughter's £20,000 inheritance and wedding fund to pay for holiday to Egypt and shopping trips to Selfridges after telling her 'I'll keep your bank card safe in the attic because otherwise you'll spend it'
- Denvar Bathie, 23, inherited £30,000 when he father died in 2013
- She wanted to save up for a house and for her forthcoming wedding
- Her mother persuaded her to hand over her card and pin for 'safe keeping'
- Trudy Collins, 44, used her daughter's account 173 times spending £20,000
- At Preston Crown Court she was given a 12 month suspended prison sentence
Mother Trudy Collins, 44, stole her daughter's £20,000 inheritance after convincing her that she would keep her bank card and pin number safe
She had been saving it to pay for her wedding and a deposit on her first home.
Denvar Bathie, 23, had put aside £20,000, inherited from her late father, for her big day and resolved not to use a penny of it until then.
So she was devastated a year later when she discovered her mother had stolen the money and spent it on herself.
Trudy Collins, 44, had persuaded her daughter to hand over her bank card and PIN – claiming she was helping Miss Bathie avoid any temptation of using it.
But she embarked on a spending spree, using the inheritance to pay for luxury holidays, shopping trips and hotels.
Over a year, Collins accessed Miss Bathie’s account 173 times, spending almost £20,000.
She was caught out during a trip to Egypt in June last year when her daughter’s bank became suspicious and queried the high number of withdrawals.
Miss Bathie told Preston Crown Court how she ‘collapsed in tears’ when she realised the extent of her mother’s betrayal.
‘I trusted my mother more than anyone else and I believed her every word,’ she said in a statement. ‘But the trust disappeared there and then. I was betrayed and heartbroken.
‘She went behind my back spending my savings which was my future … my mother came up with the idea [of keeping the bank card] so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend it. Knowing how useless I was at saving, I handed it to her.’
Miss Bathie’s father Michael, who had split from Collins, died aged 45 in 2013, the court heard. He left a legacy of £90,000 to be shared between his three children.
Miss Bathie opened a savings account for £20,000 of her £30,000 inheritance and then handed over her bank card to her mother for safekeeping in her attic.
The bride-to-be added: ‘Sadly the card never went into the attic. It had its own place in Trudy’s purse the whole time and she had been using it for herself.’
Miss Bathie intended to use the money for a mortgage and her wedding in the Lake District.
Bride-to-be Miss Bathie, 23, pictured above, was saving her inheritance to fund her wedding and to save up for a deposit on a house
Emma Keogh, prosecuting, said: ‘Her mother suggested that she gave her the card, even saying “you will spend it”. Miss Bathie thought it was a good idea. She trusted her implicitly.’
But in June last year Miss Bathie got a call from the fraud department at NatWest bank, querying a payment to a cinema and an Amazon transaction.
She confronted her mother who admitted she had taken the money but insisted she had every intention of paying it back.
Miss Keogh added: ‘Denvar was completely shocked … As time progressed it is clear her mother was using the account as her own … to pay for whatever she needed.’
Collins, of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, claimed she had taken £8,000, saying she was ‘too embarrassed’ to ask for the money.
Miss Bathie, pictured left outside Preston Crown Court and right taking a selfie, suspected nothing until she received a call from the bank
Collins was given a 12 month jail term suspended for two years by Recorder John Corless at Preston Crown Court (pictured above), who branded the theft a 'serious breach of trust'
But police revealed she had stolen £19,310.06. Among the transactions were £890 to Monarch Air, £263 to On The Beach holidays, £448 in Selfridges and £179 on the Hilton International Hotel.
Defence counsel Rosalind Emsley-Smith said Collins ‘lost the plot’ when her home was repossessed after the breakdown of her marriage and her ex-husband’s death.
Collins was given a 12-month jail term suspended for two years with 150 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay Miss Bathie £100.
Recorder John Corless said: ‘This is indeed a tragic case and a serious breach of trust. Your daughter trusted you implicitly but you were using an account which was simply not you
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