A female ambulance paramedic is facing a jail sentence for stealing an 87-year-old patient’s purse and using her bank card to loot £1,400 from bank account.

 Anna Mogford was the driver of an emergency ambulance which was called to victim Joyce Bealey’s bungalow in a Devon village after she broke eight ribs in a fall.

Mogford sneaked back into the house while widow Mrs Bealey lay in agony on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance and stole her purse from her handbag.

She took £40 cash from the purse and used a Lloyds bank card to withdraw £1,400 in four transactions over the space of a day and a half..

The first withdrawal was made  just an hour after Mrs Bealey had been taken to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. The next was in a cash machine at the hospital the next morning just before Mogford ended her night shift.

She went on to make two further withdrawals at a cashpoint at an Aldi in Cullompton after she had dropped off her daughter at a nearby school on the next morning.

Mogford was caught on CCTV withdrawing cash from a Tesco shop in Exeter and from the ATM at the hospital.

She tried to cover up her crimes by forging a bank statement to make it look like she was taking out her own money, but the hospital footage showed her looking at a slip of paper which she had found in the purse and which contained Mrs Bealey’s PIN number.

Mogford tried to hide the wallet on top of a drugs cabinet in the triage room at the hospital but it was found a week later by a matron who was clearing up litter.

It was returned to Mrs Bealey, who was still being treated in the hospital. The bank card and piece of paper with the PIN number had been replaced but £40 cash was missing.

Mogford was in debt and needed money to pay off an Individual Voluntary Arrangement with creditors.

The thefts from Mrs Bealey’s account were discovered by her daughter Ann when she checked her mother’s account online. She said she felt sick when she saw the cash had been stolen.

Mother-of-two Mogford had been a paramedic for 15 years and worked as a driver for the South Western Ambulance NHS Trust, based at Tiverton, until she was suspended.

Mogford, aged 38, of Longlands Lane, Cullompton, denied but was found guilty of theft and fraud. She admitted perverting the course of justice by producing the fake bank statements.

Recorder Mr Martin Meeke, QC, adjourned the case at Exeter Crown Court for a probation report. He said:"The defendant must understand that this breach of trust mean that I have in mind an immediate prison sentence."

He adjourned the case until later this month.

During a two day trial the jury heard how Mogford was the driver of the ambulance called to Mrs Joyce Bealey’s bungalow at Stoke Canon, near Exeter, at 9.30pm on Saturday July 1 last year.

She had broken eight ribs and a shoulder in a fall and was taken to hospital. Mogford took the purse after returning on her own to the bungalow to fetch a dressing gown and lock up.

The ambulance dropped the patient at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital at 10.44 pm. Mogford withdrew £500 from a cashpoint at a Tesco store at 11.27 pm; £400 from the hospital ATM at 6.08 am the next day, and £500 in two transactions at Aldi at 8.51 and 8.52 am.

The money has since been refunded by Lloyds bank.

Mogford denied stealing the purse. She said the bungalow had been left unlocked and anyone could have gone in.

She said she went to the Tesco cashpoint but did not use it because a group of youths were hanging around. She claimed to have checked her balance at the hospital, rather than withdrawing cash.

Miss Francesca Whebell, defending, said Mogford’s financial problems arose after she lost a child and spent too much on her other two children.