A professional carer who stole more than £1,200 from a person with learning difficulties has been spared jail.
Adam Shakesby, 32, used the victim’s bank card to make three cash withdrawals totalling £1,250, York Crown Court heard.
The withdrawals were made at a cash machine at the Co-op in Haxby where Shakesby was caught on CCTV.
The offences occurred while he was working for the York branch of the MENCAP charity which supports people with mental-health and learning difficulties.
Shakesby was charged with fraud by abuse of position. He admitted the offence and appeared for sentence today.
The victim “has autism, epilepsy and learning difficulties and lives in accommodation provided by MENCAP,” said prosecutor Kelly Clarke.
“His mother was appointed to look after his finances but staff have access to patients’ bank accounts and keep their bank cards in a safe at the facility, along with PIN numbers.
“With the authority of patients’ next of kin, staff can use their bank cards to pay for their daily needs.”
In the summer of 2023, the victim’s mother returned from holiday to discover that several cash withdrawals had been made from her son’s bank account.
She notified the manager of York’s MENCAP branch who checked the staff roster and noticed that Shakeby had been on duty on each of the three occasions that the withdrawals were made.
Checks of the CCTV coverage at the cash machine at the Haxby Co-op confirmed that it was Shakesby who made the cash withdrawals. He was suspended from his job, then sacked in September 2023.
‘Shame, guilt and remorse’
In a victim statement read out in court by the prosecution, a MENCAP spokesman said that Shakesby’s offences had affected staff morale.
He had worked at the charity as a “trusted” care worker for eight years before the fraud came to light. MENCAP had since refunded the victim the entire £1,250 out of its own pocket.
Defence barrister Sean Smith said that Shakesby, of Hamlyn Avenue, Hull, was “ashamed of his behaviour”.
He added that Shakesby had told a probation officer that “it feels like he has been stealing from a family member, such is the shame, guilt and remorse that he felt”.
“He has destroyed a career that he loved,” said Mr Smith.
“This offence was committed purely and simply out of financial desperation and at a time when the defendant was at a particularly low ebb with significant mental-health problems.
“He suffered the bereavement of a number of family members including his brother and father.”
He said that Shakesby, who had never been in trouble before, had been in a “difficult” relationship at a time when he was working 15-hour shifts.
He had been “asked to leave the family home” and found himself living in his car and eating and showering at work.
Judge Simon Hickey said Shakesby’s crime had taken a toll on MENCAP and his former colleagues as well as the victim and his family.
“It was a mean offence, taking advantage of a young man who is extremely vulnerable,” he added.
The judge noted, however, that Shakesby had worked in the care industry since he was 18 years’ old without previous blemish, and that he was otherwise of “exemplary character”.
He said that Shakesby had shown “genuine remorse” and that at the time of the offence he was “suffering with your own mental-health difficulties brought on by the death of your father and brother” and the “difficult” relationship he had been in.
He noted that Shakesby had been using his wages “simply to survive” while living out of his car.
Mr Hickey said for those reasons he was prepared to suspend the inevitable jail sentence.
The five-month prison sentence was suspended for 18 months. Shakesby was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and complete ten rehabilitation-activity days.