War veteran ripped off by relative

Judge Denzil Lush: “He failed to treat her with any semblance of dignity, empathy or respect”

A 95-year-old Oldham war veteran was left to wear a dead women’s clothes and starved of even the smallest luxury by a stingy and dishonest relative.

The pensioner served her country in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force but is now stricken by dementia and needs round-the-clock care. She entrusted her finances to her niece’s builder husband - a man now condemned by a top judge as an uncaring brute who ripped her off. The family can’t be named for legal reasons.

Apart from spending almost £30,000 of her money, the builder left £100,000 in nursing home bills unpaid, leaving the woman under threat of eviction. In total control of her money, he paid her only £290 in two and a half years, Judge Denzil Lush told the Court of Protection in London.

As her clothes became threadbare, the woman had to wear hand-me-downs after fellow residents moved elsewhere or died.

Though she loved to dance when younger, she couldn’t even afford to buy music CDs, the judge said.

Condemning her relative for his meanness, he added: “He failed to provide her with even these modest luxuries that could have enhanced her quality of life. He failed to explain how he had managed to spend £29,489 of her money, He failed to act with honesty and integrity. He failed to treat her with any semblance of dignity, empathy or respect.”

Before she lost the capacity to make her on decisions, the pensioner had legally put him in charge of her affairs. The judge stripped him of that appointment and replaced him with a solicitor.

The court heard the woman is now so ill she has to be fed a softened diet and hoisted between her bed and chair.

The court was put on the alert by the Public Guardian’s Office, the body which looks after the interests of Britain’s most vulnerable people. The relative was “extremely evasive” when asked about the woman’s finances and had been interviewed under caution by police.

He insisted he had done nothing wrong, but inquiries revealed he had spent money from a joint account on trips to the cinema, restaurants and cups of coffee. He kept no accounts, failed to produce bank statements and mixed his own money with the woman’s.

Judge Lush said: “His management of her property and financial affairs has been a litany of failings.

“He failed to pay the nursing home fees and thereby put her placement in jeopardy. He failed to provide her with an adequate personal allowance. “The stingy sum he did pay her amounted to less than £10 a month.

“Her clothes are old and worn and mostly hand-me-downs from former residents who have died or moved elsewhere”.