A HELENSBURGH woman who defrauded four credit card companies out of almost £5,000 will not have to pay a penny back, a court heard.

Lynne Davis, of West King Street, took out four credit cards in her daughter’s name over a 14-month period between July 19, 2019 and September 18, 2020.

She was able to receive £4,948.48 in total from the companies - Aqua, Vanquish, the Very Group and Virgin - which she claimed she used to repay her late husband’s debt.

However, the Advertiser reported earlier this month how Davis also defrauded her partner’s OAP mum out of more than £16,000 in benefits and was given three months to begin paying back the cash.

She made more than 40 cash withdrawals, of between £200 and £500 at a time, using the elderly Ardrossan woman’s bank card over the 12-month period from January until December 2020.

Dumbarton Sheriff Court heard this week that Davis, 44, had been left in “dire financial straits” following the death of her husband in 2016.

Kenneth McGowan, defending told the court: “She tells me she finds it very difficult to speak about this.

“Her relationship began in 2004. They married in 2007.

“He was in the Army and was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011.

“He struggled to find work when leaving the Army and it was a sad downward spiral where his mental health difficulties remained untreated.

“He was physically abusive and he took his own life in 2016.

“It was immensely traumatic, and she realised that many of her husband’s difficulties had been kept from her.

“She took up a new relationship, and it was the mother of that partner that was the complainer in the [Kilmarnock Sheriff Court] matter. ”

Mr McGowan continued: “What she also found after his death was that debts were kept from her by him.

“His life insurance policy did not pay out.

“The sums she defrauded in these offences were put towards the outstanding loan on the house, which still stands at the sum of £13,000. She sold her car recently.”

At the hearing on August 23, Sheriff John Hamilton placed Davis on a community payback order with 12 months of social work supervision and ordered her to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work as a punishment.

The sheriff said: “The credit card companies are at a loss and that is a consequence for them.

“Let’s get this chapter finished.”