A carer who stole two rare and valuable Meissen figurines from a dying patient in Sidmouth has been described as ‘atrocious' and 'extremely dishonest’ by a judge.

Rebecca Morley took the Commedia Dell’Arte figures while working at the home of 88-year-old retired businessman David Griffin just days before he died in December 2020.

The figures of Pierrot and Tartaglia were worth up to £12,000 each and part of a set of seven which were made in 1744 and which Mr Griffin planned to bequeath to the National Trust.

She kept them for eight months before taking them to the auctioneers Bonhams in Exeter to have them valued. She claimed to have inherited them from her grandmother.

The auction house recognised them because they had valued them for Mr Griffin before his death and alerted the police, who arrested Morley.

She told officers she had found them in a bag of rubbish and been pressured to sell them by her husband, but her claims were rejected as ‘nonsense’ by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.

Morley, aged 39, of Lock Close, Sidmouth, admitted theft and was jailed for ten months, suspended for two years, ordered to do 150 hours unpaid community work, curfewed for six weeks and pay £1,000 costs.

The judge told her: “Your behaviour was absolutely atrocious. You were hoping to get away with this. It was extremely dishonest. I have to sentence you for a wicked offence of theft.

“This was stealing from someone shortly before they died and trying to sell the items when you thought enough time had passed. You were looking to make thousands of pounds for you and your family.

“You were trusted to go into a vulnerable widower’s home and provide care services but you looked around and stole the valuable items.”

The judge said he was only suspending the sentence because Morley’s children would suffer if she went to jail.

Mr Michael Brown, defending, said Morley and her husband were short of money at the time because his work as a tiler had dried up during the Covid lockdowns.

He said she is now working at a patisserie and is genuinely remorseful about what she did.