By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 11:37, Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Spy cameras were fitted in an old lady’s living room after she became suspicious of one of the care workers employed to help her get dressed in the morning, a court heard.

The 78-year-old widow had noticed money going missing on two occasions at her home in Aspatria.

So the police helped her family set a trap for whoever was responsible, prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told a jury at Carlisle Crown Court.

First they fixed two CCTV cameras in her living room, with one pointing directly towards the handbag she always kept beside her armchair.

Then, the court heard, the police planted six banknotes – all coated with a forensic grease and with their serial numbers recorded – in the purse that she kept in her handbag.

The next morning, soon after care worker Lorraine Heslop had left the house after finishing her chores, the old lady’s daughter noticed that while five of the banknotes were still there, one of them had gone.

When police searched Heslop’s home in Yewdale Road, Sandsfield Park, Carlisle, they found the same £20 note in her purse. The police did not test her hands to see if any of the tell-tale grease was on her fingers, Mr Rogerson said.

Heslop, who was working as a carer for the Good Companions Care Group at the time of the alleged theft in June, has pleaded not guilty to stealing the money. She claims she had the £20 note in her possession because the old lady had asked her that morning to swap it for two £10 notes.

Giving evidence via a video link to the courtroom, the pensioner said that though she sometimes forgot people’s names she never forgot what she had done or where she had put things.

Asked by defence barrister Greg Hoare if she had invited Heslop to give her two £10 notes in exchange for her £20 note, she replied: “No.”

Asked if she had then put Heslop’s two banknotes in her own handbag, she replied: “No.”

The trial continues

First published at 11:26, Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk