JAILED: Evil conwoman stole vital pension money

A conwoman who stole a pensioner’s food and heating money after tricking her way into her home – leaving her forced to borrow cash from family to eat – has been jailed for three years.

Selina Spencer knocked at the 67-year-old’s bungalow in the Black Country asking for a pen and paper in March last year, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

When the victim turned her back to fetch the items, 32-year-old Spencer ‘barged her way’ into the property in Woodcross, near Coseley, and asked for a carrier bag, said Mr Mark Phillips, prosecuting.

While the pensioner was in the kitchen, Spencer slipped into the living room and stole £120 from a purse on the table.

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When the older woman returned, Spencer claimed she had to go and fled down the road.

The victim had to ask her family for help as the amount stolen, her pension money, was all she had to live on for the week.

In an impact statement read to the court, she said: “I had only that money and I’d been working out if I had enough money to last me till next pension day. I’ve had to borrow money from my family to eat.”

She said the theft had knocked her confidence and she felt left her feeling taken advantage of.

She was also worried about answering her front door, and fearful that Spencer would return.

The pensioner was described as ‘being confused sometimes’ which made her vulnerable.

She lived in a row of bungalows occupied mainly by the elderly and Spencer would have known that, which was why she was in the area, claimed Mr Phillips.

The victim said Spencer was in the property for around 10 minutes and had seemed ‘fairly friendly’.

She did not expect to be burgled by her and was distraught on realising what had happened.

Spencer, who lives with her partner on wasteground in Bilston, was picked up five days after being identified by CCTV cameras. Police went as far as issuing a facial mapping image of her, the court heard.

Spencer, who pleaded guilty to robbery, was already known to officers as a drug addict with a history of past offending to fund her habit.

She had accumulated 16 convictions for 68 offences since 1999, with burglaries and shoplifting featuring increasingly over the past decade.

In 2014 she was given a six-year prison sentence following a trial for a similar distraction theft.

Mr Phillips said she usually knocked on doors selling cigarettes or perfume to get into people’ homes.

Defending Spencer, Mr Jon Roe said she had been a drug addict all of her adult life.

Following her last prison release on licence, she had stayed free of drugs for 11 months.

“Unfortunately her boyfriend is also a drug addict and she lapsed into drugs again. She bitterly regrets that,” said Mr Roe.

Sentencing her, Judge Anrad Nawaz said Spencer had caused her victim ‘great anxiety and embarrassment.’