Pamela Gwinnett, 63, was jailed for six years and two months at Preston Crown Court on Monday for taking almost £300,000 from a pensioner she had presented herself as caring for. She had spent more than a year in Tenerife before police brought her home.
The victim, Joan Green, was 89 and a retired accountant living in Chorley, Lancashire. Gwinnett befriended her during the Covid-19 pandemic and passed herself off as her carer. Ms Green died in 2022.
Judge Michael Maher said Gwinnett had treated her as “a cash cow to be milked until she was dry”. The money went on Botox treatments, a £22,500 car, expensive meals and mortgages on properties Gwinnett owned. In total she took £296,173.68, savings Ms Green had built up with her late husband Stanley, a retired senior manager at British Aerospace.
Cut off from her family
Gwinnett, nicknamed the “Black Widow”, persuaded Ms Green to give her power of attorney, which put her in charge of the pensioner’s finances. The Manchester Evening News reported that she then changed the locks and the landline number at Ms Green’s gated bungalow so relatives could not get through.
Carers who visited the home said they saw Gwinnett “barking” at Ms Green and neglecting her basic needs. When the pensioner asked why her family had stopped coming, Gwinnett told her they “weren’t good enough”. She invented allegations against them and claimed the backing of the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
The family had the power of attorney revoked in March 2022. It made little difference. Gwinnett had already opened a joint bank account with Ms Green and kept drawing on the money.
Flight and arrest
In April 2025, while awaiting trial for theft and fraud by abuse of position, Gwinnett left for Tenerife. She was convicted in her absence in October last year and given a six-year sentence. Judge Maher said then that he knew “full well” where she was, and told her: “You have treated this process – as you did Joan Green – with utter contempt.”
A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing later ordered her to repay the stolen money.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed in July that she had been arrested in Tenerife. Its officers worked with the National Crime Agency and Spanish authorities to find her and arrange extradition. She was flown back last week, and the extra two months were added at Monday’s hearing.
Investigating officer PC Georgia Loughton said Gwinnett had “knowingly defrauded a vulnerable woman” and had cut off all contact with her family. “Joan was isolated from her family and denied from seeing her grandchildren and their children,” she said. Loughton added that she hoped Gwinnett’s return would give the family “a sense of justice”.
Chief Superintendent Helen Critchley, the Bolton district commander, said after the arrest that the force would “relentlessly pursue” people who exploit vulnerable members of the community.
