Married nurse stole £7,500 from foster daughter, 18, for luxury life

Married nurse, 57, who stole £7,500 from foster daughter, 18, while she was bullied for wearing ‘cheap and dirty clothes’ and spent cash on meals out with her secret lover is jailed for 12 months

• Carole Toft, 57, splashed out on fancy shoes, hair appointments and meals
• She paid for all of it on her foster daughter’s card using her bursary money
• Toft  has admitted fraud by false representation and was jailed for 12 months

A nurse who forced her foster daughter to live a ‘Cinderella’ lifestyle whilst she used the youngster’s savings on a secret lover and luxuries for herself has been jailed.

Married Carol Toft, 57, treated herself to new shoes, handbags, hair appointments and meals out for herself and her boyfriend.

Meanwhile her 18-year-old foster daughter Chloe Creevy was made to take packed lunches to college where she was bullied for wearing ‘dirty and cheap’ clothes.

Over a three year period Toft from Warrington, Cheshire, used Miss Creevy’s bank card to steal up to £7,500 which had been accumulated through a bursary and welfare entitlements approved due to the teenager’s special needs.

Her lover Michael Jebb who was wrongly told by Toff that her husband Neil had passed away was treated to series of nights out in various restaurants in which she always paid the bill with the teenager’s bank card. In one incident Toft had her hair done using her foster daughter’s cash whilst the victim sat in her car outside the salon.

The thefts emerged when Miss Creevy who is treated as a ‘vulnerable adult’ was assigned new carers in 2019 and they found suspicious transactions on her bank account.

Carole Toft, 57, splashed out on fancy shoes, hair appointments and meals using the money

Conniving Toft paid for all of it on her foster daughter’s card using her bursary money grant

In a statement to police Miss Creevy, now 24, said: ‘I loved and trusted Carol and called her “mum” but now I feel betrayed. She never allowed me to have my own money and she would never allow me to have my bank card.

‘I had to take packed lunches to college and I was there because my clothes were dirty and cheap. In the end I was given shoes and clothing by another foster child. Carol never allowed me to speak to a doctor or a social worker on my own as she told me what to say. She made me and others believe that my disability was worse than it is.’

She added: ‘I am so angry and upset. ‘The first thing I saw was the payment to the hairdresser. I was never allowed to have my hair done.

‘I felt so betrayed and sad. I trusted her. I believed that she had my best interests at heart.

‘I never thought that she would do something like this. I now find it difficult to trust people. Due to what I am going through I am self-harming and I have been seeing a psychiatrist to make myself better. I thought she loved me.

‘I feel stupid, worthless and heart-broken by what has happened. I hope that she will be punished as a result and I also hope that she will be prevented from hurting other people like myself.’

At Chester Crown Court, Toft admitted fraud by false representation and was jailed for 12 months. She and her husband are now in the process of getting a divorce.

Toft, pictured before, has admitted fraud by false representation and was jailed for 12 months

The court heard the couple became foster parents to Chloe in 2012 having been approved as carers by the National Fostering Agency (NFA) in 2008. The NFA would deduct £5 per week from money given for each child to put towards a savings fund the child receives when they turn 18 so they can ‘achieve economic wellbeing and work towards a successful adult life’.

That lump sum was given to Chloe when she turned 18, the prosecutor said, after which she also received various benefits including DLA (which became PIP), Universal Credit, allowance for a mobility car, and also a bursary from her college. Toft had been entitled to pay herself some money as part of a Shared Lives Agreement which was equivalent to board and lodgings – but then used the money for herself.

Mr Richard Edwards prosecuting said: ‘Chloe has special needs and is classed as a vulnerable adult. She lived with the defendant and her husband from June 2012 until August 2019. When she was 18 years old, in 2016, the defendant took her to Lloyds Bank to open a bank account in order for her to receive the benefits.

‘When she opened the account, the defendant told her that she did not have the ability to use the card that came with the account. Miss Creevy did say that she used the card once, in 2018, to withdraw £50 but she did not have access to the account or access to another account.

‘In August 2018 there was just over £15,000 in the account which included the savings payment from the National Fostering Association and payments from Warrington College. The defendant has used money from that account to a total amount of £7,500.

‘She used Chloe’s bank card for such things as shoes and haircuts, shopping at Argos, Mothercare, Toys R Us, B&Q and O’Brien’s Hair Salon. At the hair salon she provided her name for the appointment and paid for the haircut using the bank card belonging to Chloe, who was sitting outside in the car at the time she had her hair cut.

‘The defendant started a relationship with Mark Jebb in 2013 and told him that her husband had passed away, that she was a nurse at Alder Hey Hospital and that she looked after children in foster care.

‘During the time she was seeing Mr Jebb she used the card belonging to Chloe to pay for meals. Mr Jebb indicated in a statement that the defendant paid for nearly everything during their time together.

‘The defendant knew she could spend Chloes Creevy’s money for Chloe’s benefit but she clearly used her card it to purchase things that were not for Chloe’s benefit, such as when she was in a relationship with Mr Jebb.’

In mitigation defence counsel, Richard Brigden, said Toft had not set out to defraud her foster daughter, and that the financial arrangements were complicated.

‘This was a confusing financial situation,’ Mr Brigden said: ‘ Chloe was a young woman receiving various benefits from various different places and was expected to pay towards certain things that were not always for her benefit. That just put into the mix of confusion.

‘It was not dishonest use of the bank card from the outset, it was a chaotic use and at some point, objectively, that became criminal and not simply incompetent.’

Sentencing Toft the judge Mr Recorder Mr Lawrence MacDonald, told herd: ‘Chloe Creevy lived with you for seven years from 2012 to 2019 from the ages of 14 to 21.

‘When she turned 18, a bank account was opened for her with Lloyds Bank. Her various benefits were paid into her bank account and that was her money – a lot of money particularly for an 18-year old girl.

‘For a girl in foster care, with the vulnerabilities and dependencies that entails, it is a potentially life-changing sum of money. You did not set out to steal her money but there came a point, when you knew full well that you were spending Chloe’s money for the benefit of yourself – for shoes, handbags, payments to Argos, Toys R Us, and B&Q.

‘Money was spent on your new partner during the course of that relationship. You paid for meals out, you paid for almost everything in that relationship. Chloe’s victim statement was heart rending and detailed a shattered young life that you were supposed to care for.

‘It is clear to me that this offending had a profound and long-lasting effect upon her. A person who she trusted and treated as a mother and who saw her at her most vulnerable had abused her trust and took her money and compromised her start in life as an independent adult.

‘Fraudulent activity by a foster parent taking a foster child’s money is an offence such that an appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody. Society will not tolerate foster parents stealing the money of children they are supposed to be looking after.’

Toft faces a Proceeds of Crime hearing next year.

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