A FORMER Keighley woman stole nearly £200,000 of her grandmother’s life savings, a court has heard.

Katie Gosley-Shaw, 38, went on a four-year spending binge and blew thousands on designer clothes, hair dos, air travel, a house and top-of-the-range BMW.

While she was living the high life, her doting grandmother – 89-year-old Ruth Gosley – was left shivering with no heating oil for her home during one of the coldest winters on record.

Gosley-Shaw also stole two gold necklaces given to her gran by her late husband when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Barrister Liam O’Brien, prosecuting at York Crown Court, said Gosley-Shaw, faced with mounting debts after separating from her former husband, took advantage of her gran’s trusting nature and wiped her accounts clean as the widower lived in “abject poverty”.

“She couldn’t pay for electricity, oil or water, and all the while her granddaughter was spending her money frivolously,” he said

The cruel deception lasted from February 2009 until November 2012, when Gosley-Shaw conned her gran into believing she was paying her council tax and utility bills for her.

Instead she was transferring mind-boggling amounts from her gran’s accounts into her own.

She withdrew vast sums of money from cash machines and tendered cheques using Mrs Gosley’s Northern Rock and HSBC accounts.

In November 2009, the pensioner had £192,000 in assets, excluding shares. But by the time of Gosley-Shaw’s arrest in January 2013, Mrs Gosley was left with just £25.

During police questioning, Gosley-Shaw claimed her grandma must have forgotten she had given her permission to spend her money. When officers asked her if she loved her gran and had any remorse for what she had done, she replied “no comment”.

Gosley-Shaw was charged with multiple counts of theft and three of fraud, and appeared in court for trial last week after entering ‘not guilty’ pleas at a previous hearing.

During the four-day trial, Mrs Gosley – who gave evidence via video link so she didn’t have to be in the same room as her granddaughter – rubbished the defendant’s claim she had given her carte blanche to spend huge sums of money on herself.

Gosley-Shaw’s defence counsel described the defendant as the “spoilt grandchild of a wealthy widow”, but claimed she did not deliberately steal from her gran, whose house in Tockwith was like a “second home” to her.

But the jury found Gosley-Shaw guilty on all eight counts.

Judge Rodney Jameson adjourned sentence for probation reports on her family situation, but warned Gosley-Shaw he was intending to impose a long prison sentence.

Gosely-Shaw will be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on January 14. She was released on bail until then on condition she does not contact her grandmother.