'Lady Glanister', who stole thousands of pounds from vulnerable care home residents, has been jailed

A finance manager, responsible for two care homes for adults with learning disabilities, stole a total of £338,805 from the homes and its residents.

Jenny Glanister, who dubbed herself ‘Lady Glanister’, was jailed for 23 months after admitting to eight counts of theft, fraud and false accounting at Northampton Crown Court.

She stole the money between 2004 and 2010 and her crimes were only discovered after she left the company and a new accountant discovered “serious and alarming anomalies”.

The 51-year-old managed the accounts of Oakfield Ltd, which runs a home in Easton Maudit, near Wellingborough, and one in Yardley Hastings, Northampton.

She was also trusted with debit cards, the residents’ petty cash and their personal finances.

When police arrested her at her home in Whiston in Northamptonshire, they found 15 fur coats, racks of designer clothes, bottles of champagne and a receipt for a £3,400 cruise.

They also found she had spent £233,000 at TV shopping channel ‘Rocks and Co’ on 180 pieces of jewellery including an £18,000 diamond broach. The new accountant found she had used the company’s accounts to pay her heating bills and petrol for her car, increased her salary and paid herself for extra hours not worked.

A total of £72,923 had been taken from the home's petty cash, £227,000 in cheques cashed from the home's accounts and £17,272 by claiming for additional hours that she had not worked.

More than £2,000 was charged to Oakfield for the cost of fuel and £17,000 to the residents' personal accounts.

All of the items that are recovered will be sold at auction with the proceeds going to the care homes.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors visited the two homes last December and carried out a Review of Compliance.

In the report, inspectors said that as a result of Glanister’s case which was an on-going police investigation at the time, “better systems had been put in place for the management of people's money”.

“There have also been changes to the way residents’ money is managed with their finances now also overseen by the registered manager and one of the directors who reports to the board,” said the CQC.

Inspectors also cross checked a randomly selected sample of receipts against financial records.

‘While checking someone's financial records we found that they had been charged a proportion of the cost of staff meals and drinks on a visit to a restaurant. On looking at other records we found similar entries. We discussed this with the registered manager who believed that this practice had stopped. We asked the registered manager to look into this and also notified the local authority safeguarding team of our findings. Since our inspection visit we have received written confirmation that people using the service have been reimbursed for these costs which were incorrectly charged,’ said the report.