"I thought my Doncaster carer was my friend - then she stole hundreds of pounds from me"

Helen, from Tickhill, had taken her on in the summer of 2015, and regarded her not just as an employee – she also regarded her as a friend.

They shared days out and she even helped Helen raise money for a mobility car to help get around, with fund raising events held all over Doncaster. One of them, involving a sponsored run by a well known boxer, even featured in the Free Press.

But after several years something strange started happening. Money was mysteriously being taken from her credit card. It was being taken out at cash machines.

After a police investigation, it emerged Helen’s carer had taken hundreds of pounds using her credit card.

It has left Helen, aged 49, devastated, and struggling to trust people again. And today she is warning others to beware – as she feels what happened to her could happen to anyone.

Helen has had carers for 30 years – but this was the first time she had been a victim of crime by a carer.

She said: “I was her employer – I got finance from the council as a direct payment.

"I suffer from cerebral palsy, and I’m in a wheelchair, but I’ve also suffered from mental health issues and anxiety.

"Cerebral palsy gradually gets worse as you get older, so I have been employing carers for 30 years – I’m good at it and I know what I’m doing.

“I took on a carer who started working for me in June 2015, and when she first started she was great. She was a trusted personal and family friend. We used to go out for the day together. I got out and about and I wasn’t as reliant on my mum. She was like my personal assistant.

"She had been working for me for three and a half years, and I thought she was a friend until she started stealing.

"Then £10 notes would go missing. I didn’t for one second think it was her. She had become part of the family

"Then we started seeing credit card money taken from a cash point. I can’t use cash machine as I’m confined to a wheelchair. Only my carer and my mum knew the card number. But money was going from different machines, in Tickhill, Balby and Wadworth.”

When Helen found out about the credit card she rang the police straight away. They interviewed her carer and at the end of the investigation she was charged with fraudulent use of a stolen credit card.

The fact that it had been someone that she had trusted and befriended upset Helen greatly.

He said: "I was devasted, because you see this sort of thing on the television happening to pensioners. I always thought it would never happen to me because I’m switched on.

"Now, all my trust has gone.

“It is a year since it happened now. I had been receiving counselling for mental health problems, but it’s set me back.

"She was helping me with one hand, while stealing from me with the other.

"I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I would urge people to be careful.”

Helen’s mum, Mary, said what had happened had been a double blow for Helen, with it having been someone who she regarded as a friend who had been stealing from her.

In the end, Helen did not lose out financially. Her credit card company has refunded the money that was stolen to her.

Her former carer, Sarah Evans, aged 37, of Intake, appeared before Doncaster magistrates on Tuesday August 18, and pleaded guilty to 12 counts of fraud by using Helen’s credit card. The incidents were between April 9 and June 23, 2019, involving sums ranging between £20 and £250. The total amount she admitted taking over that period added up to £630.

She was given a three month community order which puts her under a curfew from 9pm until 7am for three months. She was also ordered to pay a surcharge to fund victim services of £90 and costs of £85 to the Crown Prosecution Service.