AN ALLOA couple have been found guilty of stealing £60,000 from an elderly relative’s bank accounts over the course of almost five years.

Former police officers Andrew Rough and his wife Jean, both 58, drained the savings of Andrew’s mother after being asked to help the 86-year-old with groceries and bills.

The callous duo spent the money on paying the mortgage of an up-market, new-build home, loading up with hunting, shooting and fishing supplies, and a brand new game gun.

They also lashed her cash on deposits on a summer house for their back garden, laser eye surgery for Andrew, and squandered up to £700 a month buying trolleyloads of groceries in what the prosecution described as “their version of Supermarket Sweep”.

The withdrawals began after the complainer’s now late husband, also called Andrew, was taken to hospital with a stroke and the old lady handed her son and daughter-in-law her bank cards to do her £30 weekly shop, and to collect money to pay her gardener and cleaner.

She also gave them power of attorney and handed over her bank statements to them unopened.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard there was no dispute that the pair had then made “repeated” withdrawals and purchases, taking up to £12,000 a year.

The only issue was whether they had permission. Indeed, the initial indictment accused the two of taking around £86,000, though prosecutors later adjusted their estimates.

The jury trial started on Monday, August 7 and lasted for 10 days before Sheriff William Gilchrist.

Police were first called in by social workers in 2015 after the cutting-off of the complainer’s phone caused her panic alarm to stop working – meaning she would have been unable to call for help if she had fallen down stairs.

Andrew Rough’s mother, who endured four-and-a-half days of lawyers’ questions over a video link, said she had told them they could also use her cards for themselves “if they were stuck”.

However he insisted there were “no riders, no restrictions, no limits” and claimed he and his wife were free to use his mother’s money however they wished.

Though the Roughs enjoyed three holidays a year at the time, the court heard the pair now have almost nothing left, and were living in a one-bedroom flat in Alloa belonging to their grown-up son.

Andrew Rough’s advocate Lewis Kennedy said that there was “nothing sinister” in any of the transactions.

Dale Hughes, for Jean Rough, said the complainer had told them “repeatedly” to take what they needed for themselves, and in doing so had given them a mandate to make withdrawals for whatever they needed.

The couple had moved in November 2012 into a four-bedroom new-build house in Alloa, with the intention that the complainer would live with them and her husband would go into a care home close by.

But Andrew Rough Sr did not move, and then decided to return to her own home in Gargunnock, Stirlingshire, where she was a regular at coffee mornings and the local knitting circle and had “many friends”.

The new house more than doubled the cost of the Roughs’ mortgage, and the pair began to hammer the elderly woman’s accounts to make up the shortfall.

In her evidence, the widow said she had been “shocked and stunned” to find that large sums had gone out.

She told a horrified niece: “I’ll have nothing left.”

A few days later, Andrew Rough wept as he gave evidence, claiming he was “deeply hurt” by his mother’s allegations.

He said: “She told me and Jean, in my presence, that it was OK for Jean to use the card for whatever.”

Mr Kennedy, his lawyer, asked: “Do you have any notion why your own mother should make these allegations against you?”

He replied: “I find it hard to understand. I have my own thoughts. I think she’s probably been pressurised by other members of the family.

“I believe they think there’s a pot of money that they want to get their hands on.”

He was then asked: “How do you feel when your own mother makes these criminal allegations, you being a retired police officer?”

Rough said: “I’m deeply hurt by it. She was totally consistent with me that we had permission to use whatever we wanted.”

However, prosecutor Sarah Lumsden said Andrew and Jean were “money-grabbers” who had “used her like a cash machine”.

She added: “They were reckless with her money and had utter disregard for [her] finances.

“They abused her trust and left her with nothing. This was abhorrent, disgusting, disgraceful abuse of a lady in her 80s – and it went on for years.”

After the evidence was heard, Sheriff Gilchrist told jurors an analogy might be someone who told a babysitter to help themselves to food and drink, but then found they had taken the entire contents of the wine cellar.

Less than two hours later, the panel of nine women and six men found the Roughs guilty, unanimously, of embezzling the £60,000.

Sentence was deferred for reports until September 13, and they were released on bail.