A FRAUDSTER has been given a suspended sentence for her role in trying to take £380,000 from two bank accounts.

Mary Flaherty, 50, was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work after she conned staff, who allowed her to transfer £180,000 and withdraw £10,000 cash.

Joe Culley, prosecuting, said Flaherty, of Halston Close, Wandsworth, London, was given account numbers by a third party and posed as an account-holder on two occasions.

In the first instance she was able to access £190,000 from one account after going into the Horley, Surrey, branch of Lloyds TSB on May 21, 2013, and using a fake driving licence and providing a signature.

Ten days later, Flaherty entered a Lloyds TSB branch in Keighley posing as a different account-holder. Again she asked for a £180,000 transfer and £10,000 in cash.

A member of staff, aware of the earlier fraud, checked the ID used in Horley and realised the photos were the same.

Flaherty, who was listening to court proceedings via video link from Southwark Crown Court after collapsing before an earlier hearing, was arrested before any money could be transferred.

In mitigation, the court heard how Flaherty had told police at the station she was the victim of serious domestic violence and she had been bullied into carrying out the scam.

Her barrister told the court: “She was set up or under some threat to carry out what she was asked to do.”

The 50-year-old, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, is the second defendant to be sentenced.

Mohammed Ramzan, 27, of Northdale Road, Frizinghall, was spared jail in March this year after he pleaded guilty to the same offence.

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He worked at the High Street branch of what was then Lloyds TSB in Keighley and handed bank account details to a third party to allow the fraud to take place.

No direct link was found between the two defendants.

Judge Colin Burn told Flaherty: “This was an extremely serious piece of offending but although I accept you are a vulnerable person because of your background in early life, the people on the receiving end of this were at an advanced age and this would have caused them an immense amount of upset wondering where their money savings had gone.

“There’s only so much sympathy a court can offer, even to a person of your background.”