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Grandson stole every last penny of his grandmothers life savings

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Grandson stole every last penny of his grandmother's life savings

Darren Gledhill has been jailed for over two years for stealing £430,000 from his grandmother (Picture: SWNS)

A man who stole every last penny of his grandmothers life savings to fund an online gambling addiction wept as he was sentenced to more than two years in prison.

Darren Gledhill, 30, took £430,000 from his grandmother Sandra Gledhill – who had dementia – after she moved into a care home.

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It left her three children with no inheritance after her death in January.

Gledhill, Sandras only grandson, worked as a manager for Sainsburys and set up the online banking for his gran while she was still able to live at home.

But without her knowing, he stole nearly £43,500 from her account, Bradford Crown Court heard.

When she moved into a care home where they lived in Halifax after being diagnosed with vascular dementia, Gledhill stole a further £390,000.

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Prosecutor Philip Adams told the court that the theft only came to light when staff at the care home noticed Sandra, who was in her 70s, was over £40,000 in arrears of her fees.

The investigating police officer obtained a production order to obtain her bank account details and that revealed the scale of this offending, Mr Adams said.

Gledhill wept in the dock as the details of his offending were revealed in court today.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ray Tang/REX/Shutterstock (1222758ek) Bradford Crown Court in Exchange Square, Drake Street. Bradford, Yorkshire, Britain. Bradford, Yorkshire, Britain - 26 Aug 2010

Gledhill wept as he was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court (Picture: Getty)

Between June 2014 and November 2017 Gledhill stole a total of £434,231 by making 350 bank transfers into his own account.

The largest transfer was £10,200, but the lowest was the final transfer in November last year for just £1.20, the court heard.

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After his arrest Gledhill admitted that the vast majority of the stolen money had been spent on gambling.

Barrister Abigail Langford, defending, said the gambling – which began at a time when her client was working away from home a lot and staying in hotels – was the catalyst for the theft.

It was an online gambling addiction, she said.

He will never be able to repay the money he took. It causes him great distress now in the cold light of day.

He was clearly in the grip of a downward spiral of depression at the time of the commission of these offences, sadly unrecognised by him.

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During sentencing, Recorder of Bradford Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told Gledhill: You were a prodigious gambler and I suspect, as there is nothing left, a prodigious loser.

He said the emotional distress caused by Gledhill was beyond calculation and he had wiped his grandmothers account clean.

Gledhill that he had taken every penny that his grandmother had amassed over a long, frugal and hard-working life, the judge said, and he had also robbed her three children who were to be her beneficiaries.

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Gledhill, of Hebble Gardens, Halifax, pleaded guilty to theft in April.

He was sentenced to 28 months in prison.

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