Our mum went to jail for stealing our inheritance

Two sisters whose mother went from being their best friend to stealing their £50,000 inheritance say they have been left feeling anxious and unable to trust anyone.

Katherine Hill, 53, from Alltwen in Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, and her 93-year-old father Gerald Hill from Fairwood in Swansea were found guilty of fraud by abuse of power after a trial last year.

They were sentenced to 30 months in prison and a 12-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, respectively. On Monday, [Katherine]Hill was ordered to repay the money, which was left to her daughters Gemma and Jessica Thomas by their grandmother Margaret Hill.

"I'll never have a relationship with my mother now," said Jessica.

Swansea Crown Court previously heard, due to inflation, the sum stolen by the "greedy and spiteful" Hills was now worth about £65,000.

Katherine Hill put the money in an instant access Barclays Everyday Saver , despite being advised not to, and both she and her dad had cards to access it - draining the contents within a year.

Between March 2016 and March 2017, the where the money was held was emptied in 10 withdrawals, with £35,000 withdrawn in three transactions alone, the court heard.

Gemma and Jessica grew up in Neath Port Talbot with their parents, and said Hill was a "good mother".

"She was like my best friend," said Gemma, now 26, adding "no-one saw this coming."

She said Hill did not have a good relationship with her own mother Margaret Hill - who split from her father when Hill was a teenager - though the girls did not know why.

Margaret Hill died in 2014, while [Katherine] Hill was divorcing the girls' father, Chris Thomas.

At the time Jessica was just 12 and not told about the inheritance, but Gemma, who was 15 "understood a little bit more".

The £50,000 was placed in a trust fund with their mother as a trustee - to be accessed when they were 25.

Following the divorce, the girls stayed living with their mother for about six months, but say she would often leave them alone for long periods of time while she visited her new boyfriend.

"It would start where she was going on dates and stuff. And I think I was at that perfect age of 'my mother's going out for the night, I can have friends over', and I was kind of loving it for a while," said Gemma.

"But it got to the point where it was happening every weekend and people expected that I wasn't going to have a parent at home, and I would be like, 'please will you stay home this one time":[]}