A 50-year old woman from Essex identified as June Weatherman has Friday, September 26, 2014 been jailed for seven years for posing as a doctor in a hospital to steal from the bedsides of ailing patients.
Weatherman looted the bank cards of her victims who were elderly cancer patients, mostly in their eighties, and subsequently withdrawing from their accounts thousands of pounds.
At her arrest, Weather claimed to be targeted at because she was mixed race. However, the Guilford Crown Court convicted her with about 15 charges of theft and fraud.
According to Prosecuter Ruby Selva Weatherman, had been seeking opportunities to steal handbags and wallets by stalking the corridors of hospitals across the South of England.
She said: ‘June Weatherman carried out a string of dishonest offences over a period of time under rather mean circumstances.’
The jury of seven men and five women heard how Weatherman had shamelessly targeted people who were either too ill to know the events happening around them or recovering from surgery and general anesthetic.
According to a report by Daily Mail, her victims were elderly, mostly in their 80s, and two – Linda Connor and Aileen Henderson – went on to die from their illnesses.
Pamela Verrinder was aged 87 when she had her handbag stolen from her room at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, last September, the jury heard.
CCTV footage was played to the jury displaying where she stalked corridors at the hospital. Weatherman confessed using Mrs Verrinder’s HSBC card on 119 occasions to buy £6,322 worth of goods.
Jurors were shown CCTV of Weatherman in the hospital that day, where an ATM withdrawal on Ms Cooper’s NatWest card was declined.
‘She is, in effect, caught red-handed using Jean Cooper’s card,’ said Miss Selva.
She used other stolen bank cards to illegally withdraw money at locations in Essex, Cambridgeshire, Kent and London.
Police laid their hands on evidence from mobile phone linking numbers associated with Weatherman to the locations and dates of the crimes she was alleged to have committed.
Weatherman whose address was not known had claimed during interviews after her arrest in January that she was being set up because she was not from another part of the world.
Temporary Detective Sergeant Andy Jenkins said: ‘I would like to thank the members of the public who came forward to identity June Weatherman – it is without doubt that their information was crucial in helping us bring this woman to justice.
‘Weatherman’s brazen actions in targeting and deceiving elderly and vulnerable patients whilst in the process of receiving medical care were particularly callous acts on her part – the impact this sort of offense can have on the victims and their families cannot be underestimated.
‘I hope that the custodial sentence given to Weatherman today acts as a deterrent to anyone considering preying on the vulnerable in such a cold and calculated manner and also illustrates the seriousness of these crimes,’ Jenkins added.
