A CALLOUS daughter went on a spending spree with her father’s savings after she stole his cheque and bank card details.

Widower Michael Postle had supported his 41-year-old daughter, Gillian Postle, by paying her rent for a year after she was released from prison for theft, Bolton Crown Court heard.

But Darren Preston, prosecuting, said that when she visited her father’s home in Radcliffe in July last year with her three children, she took the opportunity to tear a cheque out of his cheque book and make a note of his card details.

She then used the cheque to pay £5,337.60 she had accumulated in rent arrears and went on a spending binge, booking a plane flight and a motorcycle track day, as well as a three- night trip to Bodmin in Cornwall and several purchases from Argos.

Postle, of Babylon Lane, Anderton, was due to stand trial but, on July 8, the day the case was due to start, she pleaded guilty to theft and six counts of fraud.

Mr Preston said that in 2007, Postle was living in Cornwall and was jailed for 18 months after she was caught stealing customers’ money at the travel agent where she worked.

When she was released, she returned to Bolton with her children and her father helped her to rent a house in Blackburn Road for a year before she moved to another property in Chorley.

Mr Postle noticed the money had gone missing when he got his statement, the court heard. His signature had been forged on the cheque, which Postle had paid to her landlord, and Mr Postle was left with just £27 in his account.

The court heard it was not the first time Postle had swindled her father.

In 2006, he gave her his bank details to pay her rent and she took and extra £1,700 for herself.

Mr Preston said father and daughter were now estranged.

He added: “The impact on him has been enormous, emotionally and financially, in every way you could imagine.”

David Ryan, defending, said the trip to Bodmin had been a holiday for her children and two of the Argos purchases had been toys for them.

He added: “She is deeply ashamed of what she has done.”

Mr Ryan told the court that if Postle was jailed, there would be no one to look after her children and she would lose the travel agency job she has had since February.

Sentencing her to 16 months in jail, suspended for two years, Judge Timothy Clayson said: “Your father stood by you and you rewarded him by stealing from him in such a way as to prejudice his position financially, emotionally and in terms of his health.”

He also ordered that she should be supervised for 12 months by the probation service and must pay her father £6,079 in £300 monthly instalments.