A FORMER police officer has been banned from contacting his elderly mother for three years after embezzling more than £60,000 from her.

Andrew Rough was spared jail for the theft after his mother begged the courts not to jail him – but a sheriff said Rough and his wife Jean, both 58, needed to pay back £24,000 to the pensioner as well as banning them from seeing her.

The couple drained the bank accounts of frail Gladys Rough over a period of almost five years, when she was aged 80 to 84.

They spent her money on the mortgage of an up-market new home, loading up with hunting, shooting and fishing supplies, and getting a brand new game gun.

They also lashed out on deposits on a garden summer house and laser eye surgery, and up to £700 a month buying trolley-loads of groceries in what the prosecution described as “their version of Supermarket Sweep”.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard they used the elderly lady “like a cash machine”.

The couple were unanimously found guilty by a jury of embezzlement, which they had denied, after a 10 day trial in August. They had been warned they faced jail.

But yesterday Sheriff William Gilchrist sentenced them instead to 300 hours of unpaid work and ordered them to pay Gladys compensation, under a three-year order.

Onlookers on the public benches muttered “disgrace” when the sentence was announced, but friends of Gladys Rough and members of her family who were present refused to comment.

Sheriff Gilchrist told the Roughs that they had embezzled a substantial sum of money over a lengthy period of time – but after reading background reports he labelled them “naive” and “rash” and said he thought Gladys would have given them some of the money they stole voluntarily, if only they’d asked.

He said: “In such cases it’s inevitable that the court will start from the premise of a custodial sentence. However I do not intend to send you to prison.

“A prison sentence effectively excludes any realistic prospect of compensation, and I think that’s an important feature of what must happen."

Sheriff Gilchrist said the psychological impact on Mrs Rough of the couple’s “cavalier” behaviour had been considerable – as had the impact on her finances.

But he said: “I’m conscious that she did state that she did not want to see you go to prison. That is another factor I have taken into account.”

He said he had also considered their ages, health, and lack of analogous previous convictions.

Earlier, defence advocate Lewis Kennedy said Rough had expressed “regret and shame”, adding: “Prison might be a difficult experience for a former police officer.”

During the trial, the jury heard that the withdrawals began after Gladys’ late husband was taken to hospital with a stoke and she handed her son and daughter-in-law her bank cards to do her £30 weekly shop, and to collect money to pay her gardener and cleaner.

Rough, who shot for Scotland and the British Police team, won a bravery award for saving someone from a knife attack, was part of the crack security team that used to guard the Stirlingshire home of Mrs Thatcher’s defence secretary the late Lord George Younger, and also served as a detective sergeant with Central Scotland Police, insisted he and his wife were free to use his mother’s money however they wished.

Police were called in by social workers in 2015 after the cutting-off of Gladys’ phone caused her panic alarm to stop working.

In addition to the other aspects of the sentence, the sheriff imposed a conduct condition, banning the couple from having any contact with Gladys for three years, unless at the old lady’s express wish.