A disgraced former army Major was jailed for two years yesterday for stealing more than £160,000 from his ailing mother-in-law to fund his gambling habit.
Former Help for Heroes co-ordinator Timothy Grantham blew the unsuspecting pensioner's savings by spending thousands of pounds a night in his local casino.
Sheriff Richard MacFarlane sent him to prison and said: "The only saving grace is that the family members have been spared the ordeal of participating in a trial.
"This is a significant breach of trust of your own late mother-in-law, wife and sister-in-law. You exposed your wife and sister-in-law to investigation.
"These people were potentially targeted for serious investigation as a result of your course of criminal conduct, from which you benefited to a very, very significant extent.
"You are a thoroughly dishonest person. How was this all going to end? It wasn't going to end well," the sheriff said.
"With the gambling motivation in all of this, like a true addicted gambler you were hoping against hope you would get that big win that would clear everything up, and the hope you would go undetected - particularly by your wife."
The retired officer, who set up a charity for military heroes with his wife Lesley, previously admitted stealing £162,225 from his mother-in-law including her care home fees.
Grantham was filtering the frail pensioner's savings through a variety of bank accounts for more than three years as he gambled away large sums with regular casino trips.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that the largest sums were taken from Elizabeth McIntosh - who had dementia and alzheimer's - shortly before she died in April 2019.
Grantham - who set up The Grand Day Out for injured veterans - was burning his way through the money his mother-in-law had saved to pay for her care home.
Fiscal depute Lynne Mannion told the court that Grantham's con came to light after the care home tried to cash several large cheques from the couple which bounced.
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