Alison Ramsay was jailed for life in 2001 for giving Alice Grant, 84, a huge overdose of a powerful sedative (Picture: SWNS/Google)
A convicted murderer stole £17,000 from an ethical gift shop that employed her as part of an offender programme.
Former nurse Alison Ramsay, 59, was handed a life sentence in 2001 for killing Alice Grant, 84, at a care home.
The 59-year-old was freed on parole in November 2017 and was given a role at Shared Earth, an ethical gift shop in York that helps rehabilitate prisoners.
By October 2022, the shop’s retail director noticed some financial ‘irregularities’, revealing a ‘reducing amount of money placed into bank bags and bank books’.
Bosses checked missing till receipts and found she had been altering spreadsheets and other documents, stealing between £30 and £100 at a time.
Ramsay pleaded guilty to theft by employee at York Crown Court and was given a 20-month prison sentence.
Defence barrister Joel Wootton said Ramsay was ‘incredibly remorseful’ for betraying the trust of her former employer which gave her a chance to ‘start afresh’.
He told the court: ‘She fully accepts that she has thrown that back in their face by stealing from them over a prolonged period and she has no doubt exploited them for her own personal gain.’
Judge Simon Hickey told Ramsay she stole from an ethical company which had given her a ‘trusted’ position and an ‘invaluable opportunity’ to get back on her feet.
He said: ‘(You were) trusted because of the very nature of the Shared Earth ethos and there must be very deserving ex-prisoners or prisoners on licence that could have had your job.’
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Jeremy Piercy, Shared Earth’s managing director, said he forgave Ramsay and insisted that his ethical company would continue to hire ex-prisoners.
He said: ‘Obviously her behaviour was not what we want of a manager. She deceived us and we lost money as a result.
‘She is her own worst enemy; she has ruined her own life by what she’s done, so she has done far more harm to herself than to Shared Earth.
‘While obviously we don’t want something like that happen again, it doesn’t change our policy to help prisoners to get back into the community.
‘In our view, it’s a very positive way of preventing crime in the future because so many prisoners reoffend when they come out because they don’t have jobs and they are getting no support.
‘So in our view employing prisoners is very valuable, not just for the individuals but for the community as a whole.’
Ramsay was jailed at Newcastle Crown Court in 2000 for drugging Mrs Grant to death and branded ‘evil and a disgrace to her profession’ by detectives at the time.
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