A MUSSELBURGH carer stole thousands of pounds from a vulnerable client who considered her a friend.

Nicola Willis took more than £28,000 from the bank account of the woman she was employed to take care of.

Willis plundered the account of the woman, who is said to be in her 40s and needs the assistance of a wheelchair, after she had been charged with the day-to-day care of the disabled woman by her employers the Thistle Foundation.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that Willis and the woman had become friends over the course of the past few years, with Willis inviting the woman to her wedding and regularly dropping in to see her on occasions such as Christmas Day.

But despite the close relationship between the pair, 40-year-old Willis, of Monktonhall Terrace, began stealing cash from the woman’s bank account in 2012 after she began having “financial difficulties”.

Withdrawals of cash from Thistle Foundation clients’ accounts were to be logged onto a cash sheet for future inspection and transparency, but the disabled victim’s cash sheets began showing discrepancies when they were checked around October 2014.

An audit was carried out by Thistle Foundation management following the discovery of the discrepancies and bank statements going back to 2010 were ordered from the woman’s bank.

Willis subsequently attended an internal foundation meeting and told her employers that she had “messed up the woman’s finances” and admitted withdrawing money from the account.

The mother-of-three was immediately suspended from her position, which she had held since 2002, and both the police and the Care Inspectorate were called in.

Last Thursday, the Capital’s sheriff court was told that Willis and her then-husband had experienced money troubles after their pub business began to collapse. The court also heard that Willis was paying the cash back to her victim.

Solicitor Ken Cluggie said that his client had lost a £10,000 investment after the pub went bust and she was no longer together with her husband.

Sheriff Frank Crowe deferred sentence on Willis to May 19 for the preparation of reports and a restriction of liberty assessment.

Willis pleaded guilty to an amended charge of embezzling £28,016.43 from an unnamed woman between June 19, 2012, and October 23, 2014, while employed as a carer by the Thistle Foundation.

Mark Hoolahan, deputy chief executive of the Thistle Foundation, said: “The worker was a trusted long-term member of staff who had worked with us and the client for many years.

“We were shocked at her actions and the theft is not only a criminal offence, it is also a severe breach of trust; as a company we will not tolerate such behaviour from our employees.

“The Thistle Foundation is sorry for any distress caused to the victim and her family.”