A home care worker who stole three times a week from her employer for six months has been given a six-month curfew.

Independent living officer Karen Ann Deighton, 51, spent the money she received from an elderly man on luxuries, said Martin Butterworth,prosecuting.

She should have put it in the bank account of her employer Yorkshire Housing Association as payment for the jobs she did for the pensioner.

But she kept it for herself.

He paid her £18 an hour in cash three times a week for helping him with his cooking, cleaning and shopping, among other tasks.

She continued her regular thefts from April until September until an operations manager carrying out an audit realised there had been no payments into the account for the elderly man. By then, she had taken £1,242.

Deighton, of Middleham Avenue, off Huntington Road, York, pleaded guilty to theft.

York magistrates made her subject to a 26-week nightly curfew from 9pm to 7am and ordered her to pay £1,007 compensation, £85 prosecution costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

The court heard she had already paid back £235.

For her, Liam Hassan said she had mental health difficulties and since the offence had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

She was now living on benefits.

Mr Butterworth said the association's clients could pay their money by direct debit, but some preferred to pay in cash to the independent living officers who came to their houses.

The officers then put it into the association's bank account on behalf of the clients.

The elderly man for whom Deighton worked had not suffered as a result of her theft.