A 71 year old has pleaded guilty to stealing £7,000 from her daughter in order feed her gambling habbit at her local bingo club. At the Inverness Sheriff Court it was told how Celeste Stewart who lives with her soldier husband in Kenya, sent money to her mother on a regular basis to cover repairs and other bills at the two properties she owns in Inverness. However the mother who now claims to have a gambling addiction blew the money on slot machines.

Margaret Davies admits from between 1st August 2009 and 30th May 2011 she stole the £7,000 that was sent over by her daughter. Depute fiscal David Bernard claimed the daughter became suspicious when the joiner that was installing a new bathroom was not paid.

On 30th May Mrs Stewart asked a friend to get the money from her mother to pay for the work. The friend called at the house on several occasions but was unable to collect the money.

"On this date the complainer accused her mother of stealing the money," said Mr Bernard.

"The accused reacted angrily to this and said the money would be in her account within a week. The matter was raised with the police and inquiries carried out, and the accused attended on a voluntary basis at Burnet Road Police Station.

"During interview she confirmed that she had control of her daughter’s finances and made a full confession that she had used the money to gamble on the slot machines at the bingo in Inverness."

The court was told: "This is a truly tragic case. My client knows she has let not only her family and society, but herself down.

"She is, frankly, mortified to be in court. She accepts entirely that it is her own fault, that she lost money on these gambling machines, and a breach of trust on top of that.

"She gave up work to look after her mother who was in poor health and died shortly thereafter. Her children had left home and it is in that vacuum, for want of a better word, that she has fallen into this gambling addiction."

Sheriff Abercrombie deferred sentence for six months for good behaviour and to provide the pensioner the opportunity to pay some of the fund back. He did however impose a home curfew from 6pm to 6am, adding: "Were it not for your age, and the fact that you are totally contrite and have already made steps to repay part of this money which you filched from your daughter in a breach of family trust, I would not be persuaded to defer sentence."