A Tasmanian woman who stole more than $200,000 from her grandmother, who had dementia and could no longer manage her own money, has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.
Naomi Ruth Briggs was convicted by a jury of fraud and sentenced in the Supreme Court of Tasmania on June 22.
The court heard the theft “only ceased when the money had run out and there was nothing left to take”, Chief Justice Shanahan said.
Briggs was appointed administrator of her grandmother Elisabeth Briggs’s affairs in 2013, after the older woman was diagnosed with vascular and Alzheimer’s dementia and moved into care.
That role gave Briggs sole control of her grandmother’s bank accounts.
When her grandmother’s Glenorchy home sold in 2014 for about $267,000, Briggs invested most of the money in term deposits and sought advice from the Guardianship and Administration Board.
But over the following years, she withdrew the bulk of the funds in cash and bank cheques, leaving no record of where the money went.
She also made false statements in reports to the board, including claiming a term deposit still existed after it had matured.
By the end, her grandmother’s nursing home fees were about $6,200 in arrears and just $19.87 was left in her account.
Shanahan said Briggs’s grandmother placed her trust in her when she was “vulnerable, aged and ill”.
The court found Briggs appropriated $202,316.75 for her own benefit, a figure the judge reached after deducting $16,000 he accepted was spent preparing the house for sale.
Briggs denied intentionally stealing the money and blamed administrative and accounting errors.
The judge rejected that account, finding she had shown no remorse and gave no explanation for where the money went despite many chances to do so.
Briggs, who has no relevant prior convictions, will be eligible for parole after serving half her sentence.
