A woman has been jailed for two years after scamming her own grandfather out of £75,000 when she invented a fake B&Q legal battle to fund her drug addiction.
Olivia Crutchley, 23, conned Roy Crutchley, 79, by creating fake emails to look like they were from solicitors and the Citizens Advice Bureau so she seemed short of money thanks to a wrangle with her former employer B&Q - despite never working for them.
Crutchley previously had a "strong bond" with her grandad before their relationship broke down when she was accused of stealing £10 from Roy's wife, it was said.
The defendant moved back in with her mum before she moved into her own flat in Liverpool, where Roy was the guarantor and paid her rent on occasion, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
Crutchley moved to Malta briefly before coming back to the UK and telling her grandad she got a job as an assistant manager at B&Q.
She then claimed she had been left out of pocket due to extra training as part of this new role which was not paid for by the company and included travel to Southport, Birmingham and London.
Roy was then sent bogus emails from the defendant's supposed supervisor explaining the costs and the cost of her uniform.
The defendant later told Roy she stopped working for the company and had been in contact with the Citizens Advice Bureau over potential court proceedings.
Between December 2020 and June 2022, he would receive around 140 such emails - with others coming from the likes of solicitors and staff from the Citizens Advice Bureau, LiverpoolEcho reports.
Roy became suspicious after in one email a supposed lawyer said his daughter died of cancer and that the email address was from an AOL account rather than a professional address.
Over the course of the scam, Roy had transferred a total of £68,911.56 to his granddaughter and a further £6,057.30 to her partner. This resulted in an overall loss of £74,968.86.
His life savings were wiped out, with his credit cards taken to the "limit".
Roy also took out two bank loans, borrowed money from family and friends and had to sell his car and personal possessions.
In a statement read out to the court on his behalf, he said: "I did this to help my eldest granddaughter. She has been through so much in her life, I just wanted something to go well for her.
"I thought I was helping her. I just wanted the best for her."
He added: "We have worked so hard our whole lives, this is the time to enjoy ourselves.
"I am so ashamed that we have had to ask friends to borrow money. My wife can't even afford a new pair of glasses she needs.
"How do I get out of this situation? I have no idea why Olivia has done this to me after all the help I have given her over the years.
"This has turned my life upside down. I have no money to pay for mine or my wife's funerals, should the worst happen to us."
Both Crutchley's supposed employment with B&Q and all the emails involving the lawsuit were a "complete and utter fabrication". She was arrested in October last year, at which point she "fully admitted the offence".
Rosemary Proctor, defending, told the court: "Ms Crutchley has destroyed her relationship with the man she describes as her best friend growing up. She will have to live with that.
"She was addicted to opiates. She was desperate at the time of the offence.
"She wasn't thinking about the consequences of her actions, only her addiction. Her addiction was her world at that time.
"As her addiction spiralled, so did her deception. In her own words: 'I can't believe how selfish I was, I was in a place where I would have done anything to get my hands on them - I sold my TV, I sold everything in my flat'."
Ms Proctor said that her "deeply remorseful" client's addiction began when taking tramadol pain killers following a workplace accident.
Crutchley, who has no previous convictions, admitted fraud during an earlier hearing.
Sentencing her to two years' imprisonment, Recorder Graham Wells said: "I have to sentence you for an unpleasant, mean and destructive offence. It is a terrible offence.
"You have destroyed your relationship, but you also destroyed the peace and quietness of his retirement. It was over a period of years, taking him for all he had and then some."
