A 22-year-old who robbed an elderly woman’s flat as she lay dying in hospital has been told she committed one of the lowest crimes ever heard at Perth Sheriff Court.
Gillian Greig stole more than £1000 of jewellery from her victim’s home having been taken in by her “Good Samaritan” daughter as a favour to a mutual friend.
After hearing details of the theft, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said, “As far as the downright dishonest and sneaky offences I hear about on this bench go, this one is pretty close to the bottom of the heap.”
Depute fiscal Katie Pacholek told the court that a friend had asked the complainer if she would provide accommodation for the accused, who was experiencing “difficult circumstances.”
The kind-hearted lady offered to help Greig while she got back on her feet and even gave her a set of keys to her Stanley Crescent flat in Perth.
When Greig’s benefactor received the sad news that her seriously ill mother had died on July 18, she left in a hurry for the hospital, leaving her keys and the keys to her mother’s downstairs flat.
That gave the accused who has seven previous convictions for theft a chance to enter the flat in search of valuables.
Unfortunately for her she was caught red-handed as the distraught complainer and her sister returned in search of their mother’s birth certificate.
The depute fiscal said, “They found the accused in the hallway of their mother’s flat with the keys to the door in her hand. She couldn’t offer an explanation for why she was there, but handed over the keys and then left.
“Given the circumstances, the matter was not reported to the police at the time.”
The depute fiscal added, “Having had time to check their mother’s possessions at a later date, they found that three rings previously in the flat were now missing.”
Greig, of Cath House, York Place, later admitted taking a set of keys on July 18, 2008, and using them to gain access to the property, where she stole the jewellery.
She was initially ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service, ordered to pay her victim’s estate £400 compensation and placed on probation for one year by Sheriff Michael Fletcher at Perth last year.
However, after failing to complete the full amount of community service apparently through ill health she appeared before Sheriff Foulis on Wednesday for re-sentencing.
He told Greig she had taken advantage of the situation to line her own pockets, adding, “You hear some accounts in this court but this is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
The sheriff placed Greig on probation for the next 12 months and increased the balance of community service still to be served to 90 hours.