A CARER who stole about £16,000 from a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy sufferer has had just £1 confiscated from her under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The prosecution at Gloucester Crown Court accepted that Maureen Blackwell, 58, has no assets available for confiscation despite the scale of her theft from 64-year-old Margaret Russell, who previously lived in Dursley.

Judge Jamie Tabor QC formally certified that she had benefited from crime to the tune of £15,775.40.

He also certified that she has no assets and he made a nominal £1 confiscation order, warning her that if she comes into funds in the future they will be taken from her.

At her trial in May Blackwell had denied 13 charges of defrauding Miss Russell, who has learning difficulties and lives in sheltered accommodation in Tewkesbury.

Illicit withdrawals from Ms Russell's account always took place on days when Blackwell was working - and some were made at a Tesco cash machine in Cam, close to Blackwell's then home in Dursley, before she moved to Tewkesbury.

The jury convicted her of all but one of the charges and in June she was sentenced to 30 months' jail by Recorder Stephen Hall QC who said it was 'an extremely serious breach of trust'.

He said her crimes had not only hit her victim but had also put carer colleagues under suspicion until her guilt was established.

Blackwell worked for the care agency Nursing Alliance and helped to look after Ms Russell at Marina Court, a sheltered housing complex run by the Hanover Housing Association in Tewkesbury.

She was one of a number of carers who worked 24 hours, seven days a week at the victim's home and in time she became her main carer.

Her solicitor Jason Coulter told the court after her conviction that Blackwell's offences demonstrated the need for 'rather more stringent procedures' to be put in place to safeguard the money of service users like Ms Russell.