A female ambulance paramedic has been jailed for stealing a 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 Stoke Canon, near Exeter, 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.  The hospital footage actually showed her taking a wad of cash from the machine.

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.

Mogford had been a paramedic for 17 years and worked all over East and South Devon as a driver for the South Western Ambulance NHS Trust 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.

She was jailed for six months by Recorder Mr Martin Meeke, QC, at Exeter Crown Court. He told her: ’Your culpability was between high and medium, given the breach of trust and your responsibility towards a patient.

‘The public views conduct such as this with concern and distaste.’

The judge praised Lloyds Bank for refunding the money and said he was reducing the sentence to lessen the impact on Mogford’s two children.

During a two day trial last month the jury heard how Mogford was the driver of the ambulance called to Mrs Joyce Bealey’s bungalow at 9.30 pm 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 in Exeter 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 had given 17 years of blameless public service and committed these offences at a time when she was under family and financial pressures.