A SECURITY officer who stole his widowed mother-in-law’s £25,000 inheritance for her children, has been jailed.

The 81-year-old woman trusted Malcolm Killgallon, 55, to look after the money she was putting aside for her six children, said Rob Galley, prosecuting.

Instead, over 21 months, he took all of it out of her safe and spent it on his own family and household bills.

“Prison is inevitable,” Judge Paul Worsley QC told him at York Crown Court. “It has to be immediate to bring home the meanness of the offence.”

Killgallon, of Abbots Road, Selby, pleaded guilty to theft and was jailed for 15 months. He had no previous convictions.

For him, Mark Partridge said: “He allowed temptation to get the better of him and continued to do so until all the money had gone.”

Mr Galley said Killgallon’s breach of trust made the widow so upset and angry that she wasn’t eating or sleeping properly and no longer trusted people in the same way, or left her house as much as she used to.

York Press:

Initially the widow kept the money in her safe, adding £1,000 a month from her bank accounts and savings.

Then her daughter, Killgallon’s partner, suggested that she ask Killgallon to look after it at his house, and she agreed. Every month she gave him an envelope with £1,000 to put in the safe.

On September 26 last year she wanted to check the money was safe, said Mr Galley. Killgallon claimed he had put it in a bank and would give her a cheque the next day, but he never did. The following day, he confessed he had stolen it.

Killgallon told police he earned between £1,700 and £2,000 a month as a security officer and had intended to repay the money.

Mr Partridge said: “He found himself in need of extra money and he found a way of getting it.”

He had tried to get credit from the bank to repay the money, but the bank had refused and he had then offered to repay the money at £300 a month, but the offer had been refused. He regretted his actions. Police will now investigate his assets and later this year, the prosecution is expected to ask for a confiscation order to compensate the widow. Mr Partridge said Killgallon does not have property and rents his home.