When people get to the point where they are no longer able to look after themselves, or their families – if they have any – cannot care for them, then they put their trust into those who work for the caring profession.

While the majority of those who do work in the care industry do their job consummately, there are sometimes bad apples who take advantage of their charges – and Sarah Wright is one of them.

The care worker, employed to provide assistance to people in their own homes, systematically used the banking details and cards of an elderly woman she was supposed to be looking after to feather her own nest with internet purchases amounting to thousands of pounds.

Not only that, when the fraudulent spree began to unravel, the 81-year-old victim was herself chased for unpaid debts by debt collection agencies who mistakenly thought she was responsible for the purchases.

It will be a surprise to many that Sarah Wright was not jailed – though the judge did point out she had escaped a custodial sentence by the skin of her teeth – for the callous crimes.

The fact that this woman in a trusted position was so able to abuse the finances of the woman she was supposed to be caring for will also raise questions about the vetting procedures involved when people are given jobs.

Sarah Wright had no previous convictions, which admittedly makes it difficult to legislate for what someone like her might do, but there perhaps needs to be a rethink so that stringent rules are in place to weed out candidates for jobs in the care profession who might cause a threat to the people they are looking after.