A MAN who emptied his 89-year-old grandfather's bank account before stealing Elvis Presley memorabilia worth £1,000 from his dad has been sent to prison.
James Tillman "milked" Dennis Burns' account of £1,790 after stealing the debit card from his wallet and learning the pin code by breaking into a safe.
He stole the money over nine separate transactions before being caught by CCTV footage outside one of the banks he made a withdrawal from.
That led to the 26-year-old being thrown out of his family home - and his response was to steal again, this time from his father, whilst on bail for the first set of offences.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of theft and two of fraud, and asked for a further seven offences to be taken into consideration, in relation to stealing the bank card and money from his grandfather.
Tillman denied another theft charge for stealing the Elvis memorabilia but was convicted of the offence by Aylesbury magistrates after some of the goods was recovered from a lock-up garage he used in Chesham.
The offences were all committed while Tillman, of Elmtree Hill, Chesham, was the subject of a suspended sentence order for three further thefts from homes he carried out while working as a window cleaner.
Amersham Crown Court heard he was also given a caution for stealing from his then-employer, Sainsbury's, in 2007.
It led to him being jailed for a total of 13 months today after Judge the Lord Parmoor said he had abused his position as "a trusted member of the family".
The court was told Mr Burns had applied for a restraining order to be taken out against his grandson as he was so sickened by what had happened, but the application was rejected by the judge.
Christopher Morris, defending, told the court Tillman had received a letter from a former school friend telling him he owed him money, and he would continually go to Tillman's house to ask for payment.
He said Tillman emptied his grandfather's account in order to pay off this debt, adding: "He's extremely remorseful and he wishes to sincerely apologise to him [Mr Burns]. He made a terrible, terrible judgement in what he did."
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