A cleaner who stole £18,000 from her employer by taking blank cheques and writing them to herself, before cashing them into her own bank account, has narrowly avoided a prison sentence. 

“Callous” Zoe Beardsworth even cashed a cheque on the day of her employer’s husband’s funeral, who died from dementia, after consoling her and her family at the wake.

Recorder Daniel Prowse said the only reason he didn’t send Beardsworth straight to jail was because of her children.

He told the 41-year-old he was “unimpressed” at her attitude and assumption towards the sentencing hearing, due to the fact she had come to court without making arrangements for her children to be taken care of should she have been locked up.

He said: “The truth is, you have made of your children victims, and you should be thoroughly and utterly ashamed of yourself for this offending.

“Your children did not choose for you to commit these offences, nor did they choose you to be their mother and I have to consider the significant impact on them if I were to send you to immediate custody.

“It’s only the impact on your children that has led me to conclude I can step back from immediate custody.”

Preston Crown Court heard how Beardsworth, of Standen Road, Clitheroe, had been employed as a cleaner by a retired lady in her 70s called Lorna Slinger.

In October last year, Mrs Slinger noticed some strange transactions on her account and called her bank so they could investigate.

Holly Menary, prosecuting, said: “On October 26, Mrs Slinger noticed a £3,000 cheque had been paid from her account.

“She did not write it, nor could she recall spending it.

“She called the bank and they began an investigation.

“The following month, her bank notified her the cheque had been paid to someone called Zoe Beardsworth.

“Mrs Slinger said she never gave any cheques to Beardsworth and only ever paid her via bank transfer.

“She then noticed some blank cheques had been taken from her cheque book, and 11 cheque payments totalling £10,500 were taken from her account, with £3,000 to Beardsworth’s account directly.

“Mrs Slinger checked another account and found £7,500 had been paid to the defendant between April and October 2022, made up of 21 individual cheques.

“It was the defendant who had been responsible for writing the cheques without permission from Lorna Slinger.

“She was arrested in November and upon her arrest was found with a bag of cocaine in her purse.”

The court was told how Beardsworth claimed she’d taken the cheques for herself to pay off a debt of around £8,000 that she’d accrued with an abusive ex-partner who was refusing to help.

She said she “felt awful and wanted to apologise”.

In a victim personal statement, Lorna Slinger said she’d been left anxious and stressed and couldn’t come to terms with how someone could do that.

The statement read: “My husband had just died a few days before, and she cashed the first cheque between his passing and his funeral.

“She was recommended as a cleaner to us by the golf club, and was even working there on the day of his funeral where we held the wake.

“She appeared supportive towards us, and was talking to and consoling us, but she had even cashed a cheque that day.

“I keep thinking about the impact on her children, but she can’t have considered her own children when she stole from me.

“My trust has completely gone. To call the police at my stage in life has been traumatic.”

Beardsworth, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and possession of cocaine.

Tom Worsfold, in mitigation, said his client was remorseful and recognised she’d disappointed herself and hated herself for what she’d done.

He said: “If it wasn’t for her children she doesn’t know what she would have done.

“This was financially motivated and she’s accepting of that. This is not a ‘sorry, but’ apology, it’s a ‘sorry, and this is why’ apology.

“She wanted to provide a normal life for her children and was £8,000 in debt and saw an opportunity but was thoughtless.”

Recorder Prowse said: “This was unsophisticated offending, and it was always going to be uncovered.

"It was callous behaviour and desperate or not, you had no entitlement to that money.”

Beardsworth was handed 22 months in prison suspended for 18 months, given 20 rehabilitation activity days, told to complete a three-month drug rehabilitation programme, and was given an eight month curfew between the hours of 8pm and 6am.

She was also told to pay Lorna Slinger £1,500 in compensation at a rate of £5 per week, which Recorder Prowse called a “paltry amount and wholly inadequate”.