Care worker spared jail after defrauding elderly couple of their savings
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Version 0 of 1. An elderly man with dementia spent his final days in a residential home separated from his wife of 63 years after their care worker defrauded them of their savings. Mervyn and Beryl Bevan, both 86, were placed in emergency care when Frankie Yeoman stole £1,750 from them. The couple had to live in different establishments because there was no space to house them together. The couple were moved between different homes and were not reunited before Mr Bevan, a former sailmaker and war veteran, died. Yeoman, 27, was found guilty at Bristol crown court of one count of theft and 12 of fraud but she walked free with a suspended sentence. The victims’ daughter, Helen Bevan, chief transformation officer of the NHS, said Yeoman’s offences were “utterly devastating”. She said: “Frankie Yeoman deliberately targeted our parents on the basis of their vulnerability, at a time when it was her professional duty as their carer to support them. “She was trained and paid to protect them, yet she used the opportunity of being part of their lives to prey on them, to steal from them and to defraud them.” The court heard Yeoman persuaded the couple to hand over their pin numbers and siphoned off money from their savings to pay for shopping sprees. Bevan said: “Our parents were married for 63 years. They were in a truly happy partnership, never walking down the street without holding hands. They should not have been so brutally thrust into a care situation in the way they were.” The couple were housebound but did not want to move out of their home of 45 years in Stapleton, Bristol. Bevan continued: “Our hope was that they would have had just one move after they left their own home and that they would have been able to live together for the rest of their days. “Our parents were honest, lovely, gracious people who grafted all their lives. They deserved respect and honesty from the people who were meant to be helping them.” Mrs Bevan, a former NHS worker, was moved between five different homes. Mr Bevan was moved between four homes before his death. In court, Yeoman’s barrister, Jonathan Stanniland, said she was a single parent on low pay, who was performing demanding work. Judge Julian Lambert said he would have mercy on her because of her five-month-old daughter and suspended the sentence for two years. He said: “You abused that couple in their later years and the damage you did was very extensive. This was utterly despicable conduct, preying on the elderly.” Following sentencing, PC Tracey Champion, of Avon and Somerset police, said: “This crime has had a devastating effect on both elderly victims and their family. “Yeoman was in a position of trust which she totally abused and was motivated by her own greed.” Mrs Bevan is now living at a care home in Cheshire near her son. She was staying with him but had to go back into residential care after she broke her hip. |