A ‘DESPICABLE’ thieving cleaner who stole tens of thousands of pounds worth of property, including jewellery and even a Victoria Cross, from the homes of families she worked for has been jailed.
Devious Clair Jones even tried to pin the blame on a colleague before pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to six charges of theft.
Even then she backtracked, disputing the values put on the property she stole, and then attempting to vacate her guilty pleas to first one and then five of the charges.
But after rejecting her claim that the only items she stole were those found in her caravan, Judge Richard Griffith-Jones refused to allow her to do so, and Jones, 42, of Woodway Park, Rugby, was jailed for 19 months.
Prosecutor Ben Gow said Jones, working for a company called Time For You, had six clients she would clean for on a regular basis – from each of whom she stole “items not only of financial value but considerable sentimental value”.
She told her clients she had cancer, and was leaving due to ill health.
She finished, but then on July 20 one client, an 83-year-old woman, contacted Time For You to say a necklace was missing.
The company’s owner did not think anything of it until another of Jones’s clients told her property including a flute and jewellery had gone missing from his home.
When she contacted Jones’ other clients, they also reported property missing, including a Victoria Cross – the highest military award for gallantry.
When police searched Jones’s caravan, they found medals and watches from her haul.
But when she was interviewed she denied stealing the items, claiming she got them from a car boot sale.
After she was arrested over more of the offences, she claimed another employee must have stolen the items and put them in her caravan.
Mr Gow said one of Jones’s victims, a farmer, had put a value of £44,000 on the property stolen, which included the Victoria Cross and jewellery, although the insurance company had paid out only £14,000 because that was all they could verify.
Another woman had lost items worth £17,200 including a gold chain and pendant which had been bought for her grandmother’s 80th birthday, a chain she had been given for her 18th, and her and her husband’s wedding bands.
The 83-year-old had lost property worth £3,670 including a special necklace her husband had bought her.
The other three victims had jewellery, watches and other property worth between £380 and £1,500 stolen by Jones, who had previous convictions for dishonesty, added Mr Gow.
Marcus Harry, defending, said Jones had ‘suffered for some time now with a number of physical difficulties,’ and after her husband broke both wrists and had to have the bones fused they have been carers for each other.
“She’s aware this is a situation that crosses the custody threshold. The only way Your Honour could suspend the sentence is if Your Honour takes on board her personal mitigation.”
But jailing Jones, Judge Griffith-Jones told her: “You ruined people’s trust and you damaged your employer, who will have suffered reputational damage for employing a thief.
“Of the people whose houses you went into you stole from every one who was a client of yours; and what you stole was not only valuable in monetary terms, but was self-evidently of sentimental value.
“Not only did you steal from every single client, you tried to deny it and put the blame on another employee at one stage. Despicable.”
Of a letter handed in at a previous hearing in which Jones had apologised, he added: “All your talk of remorse has been demonstrated to be simply hollow, hypocritical nonsense, designed to get a lower sentence, and don’t take any notice of it.”
