From: deputydawg23x@gmail.com   
      
   Couple convicted of stealing life savings from dementia sufferer    
      
      
   Lesley Reeve, 56, and her husband Andrew, 55, spent all but £3,000 of her   
   godmother Joan Killen's £130,000 in two years    
   Andrew and Lesley Reeve court case    
      
   Lesley Reeve and her husband used the money to clear debts, buy a car and   
   spend thousands on electrical goods. Photograph: Tom Wilkinson/PA    
   Press Association    
      
   Friday 16 August 2013 14.47 EDT Last modified on Friday 20 June 2014 03.01 EDT    
      
      
   A couple have been convicted of wiping out a 91-year-old dementia sufferer's   
   life savings in two years of high spending.    
      
   Lesley Reeve, 56, and her husband Andrew, 55, spent all but £3,000 of her   
   godmother Joan Killen's £130,000 after the pensioner allowed him to become a   
   signatory on her bank accounts.    
      
   The couple cleared debts, bought a car and spent thousands on electrical goods   
   and presents for themselves, Teesside crown court heard.    
      
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   They also spent some of the cash on converting the garage of their home in   
   Hartlepool into a wet room and gym, but told police the work was really to   
   make it into a bedroom for "Aunty Joan".    
      
   The couple claimed Killen was "ecstatic" when they asked her to move in, and   
   said she had told them to spend her money how they liked. Reeve, giving   
   evidence, claimed it was a coincidence that when police arrested the couple,   
   the gym contained a    
   treadmill and exercise ball, and maintained the conversion was intended for   
   Killen, who is still alive.    
      
   That story was rejected by the jury, who convicted them of stealing £95,000 in   
   savings, and theft of rent money they made from getting a tenant to move into   
   her property when she went into a care home after a fall.    
      
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   Reeve, who collapsed in the dock, was convicted of stealing £2,940 in pension   
   payments.    
      
   The couple were cleared of stealing a winter fuel payment of £150.    
      
   While they were spending up to £2,500 of the godmother's savings a week at one   
   point in 2009, the Reeves, who have sons aged 27 and 24, were sending her a   
   weekly allowance of just £9.13 when she was in the care home, the court heard.    
      
   The Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Simon Bourne-Arton granted the couple bail   
   to allow reports to be prepared ahead of sentencing. Their sons sobbed in the   
   public gallery when the guilty verdicts were returned.    
      
   * This article was amended on 19 August 2013 to correct a mistake in the   
   headline to "life savings"    
      
      
      
      
   http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/16/lesley-reeve-godm   
   ther-couple-convicted-stealing-savings   
      
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