A financial watchdog and an MP are preparing to see what they can do to help a pensioner who was swindled out of thousands of pounds by a care company boss.

The Telegraph & Argus reported last week how Suzanne Firth, 41, who runs Able Hands home help business in Bradford, befriended frail Phyllis Wyatt, 89, to the extent they spent Christmas together and she became her legal next of kin.

But Firth was jailed for a year for swindling the house-bound spinster out of thousands of pounds by using the pensioner’s bank card to play internet bingo up to seven times a day.

Prosecutor Emma Downing told Bradford Crown Court Firth threw away Miss Wyatt’s bank statements and the shocked pensioner discovered her £25,000 savings had vanished leaving her with just her pension to live on.

Miss Wyatt’s MP David Ward (Lib Dem, Bradford East) described her situation as “awful” and said he would try and help.

The Financial Ombudsman, an independent service set up by Parliament to sort out individual complaints that consumers and financial businesses have not been able to resolve themselves, might also investigate.