A Dundee woman who demanded thousands of pounds from her carer and threatened to falsely expose him as a paedophile has failed in a bid to have her jail term slashed.
Violet Shephard was jailed for a year after emailing the OAP, demanding £3,000 to £4,000 for her and a teenager to go on holiday.
The 50-year-old, originally from Sierra Leone, launched a legal bid at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh against the length of her jail term.
But three appeal judges refused her request following a hearing yesterday.
Sentencing Shephard in January, Sheriff Tom Hughes told her the allegations could have had “catastrophic consequences” on the man if they had led to a prosecution and conviction.
Shephard, of Balmoral Gardens, had pleaded guilty on indictment but had parted with her legal representatives on several occasions.
The court was told that Shephard had wrongly accused the pensioner of being a “pervert” and told him she would “take him to court and get his name in the papers” if he failed to meet her demands.
She added she could make the entirely baseless allegations “go away” if he handed over the money but instead he reported her to police.
Shephard’s solicitor said she was not a manipulative person as she did not have the “intellectual ability”.
He added that a psychiatric reportsuggested she had a personality disorder and said people who were “not quite the full shilling to some extent don’t fall into the category of having a psychiatric illness”.