Mum stole £50,000 inheritance from her two daughters out of ‘greed and spite’

A ‘thoroughly dishonest’ mother who stole thousands of inheritance from her daughters has been jailed for fraud.

Katherine Hill, 53, and her 93-year-old father Gerald Hill have been found guilty of fraud by abuse of power after withdrawing money that had been left for her two daughters by their grandmother.

Katherine, from Alltwen in Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, had also received an inheritance of £40,000 from her late mother, Margaret Hill, who died in 2013.

The money was left to Jessica and Gemma Thomas, who were just 15 and 12 at the time, so it was placed in a trust until they turned 25 — with the defendants as trustees.

James Harston, prosecuting, said the daughters were vulnerable as due to their adolescence ‘they had no control over it’.

The account where the money was held was emptied in 10 withdrawals between March 2016 and March 2017, with £35,000 withdrawn in three transactions alone, Harston said.

When Hill’s daughter, Gemma Thomas wanted to access some of the money in 2018 to put a deposit down on a house, the defendants actions came to light.

The family initially launched a civil investigation before contacting the police.

Swansea Crown Court heard that Katherine’s 93-year-old father ‘was recruited and exploited by Katherine Hill for the purposes of carrying out the fraud’, and she had asked him to help her take out the money.

Harston said it was clear Gerald Hill’s culpability was ‘much less’ and was ‘involved through exploitation of coercion’ by his daughter.

Mr Hill was handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, while his daughter was jailed for 30 months.

The victims initially attempted to recover the money through insurers, however it failed ‘because of submissions made in writing by the defendants’ that the daughters had received it.

The missing money is currently unaccounted for.

In a court statement, victim Gemma Thomas said the crime had left her ‘in a lot of debt’, and she was dealing with a ‘great deal of emotional and financial stress’ and suffered from ‘anxiety in every area’ of her life.

Jessica Thomas said it was ‘difficult to understand how my own family can cause such harm to their own flesh and blood’, and she had suffered ‘severe mental trauma’ and needed counselling.

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