A despicable mother and daughter fraud team have been jailed after a relentless police hunt ended with one of them found wedged inside a kitchen cupboard.
Kathlene Perry, 61, posed as a carer to target a vulnerable victim in her 90s, callously stealing her bank card. She then teamed up with her 43-year-old daughter, Siobhan Perry, for a shameless shopping spree across Maidstone town centre. The duo blew more than £2,300 of the pensioner’s money on cigarettes, a vape, and Burger King meals, alongside multiple attempts to withdraw cash from ATMs.
The cruel deception came to light on 15 November 2025, when a worried relative noticed the missing funds and alerted Kent Police. Detectives immediately launched an intensive investigation, trawling through hours of CCTV footage to track the fraudsters’ movements.
Kathlene Perry was swiftly arrested at her home in Maidstone, on the very day the crime was reported. It emerged she was already subject to a strict Criminal Behaviour Order, imposed in April 2024, which explicitly banned her from using bank cards belonging to anyone else. She was hit with 14 charges, including burglary, fraud, and breaching her order.
Her daughter Siobhan, however, went on the run. Officers tracked her down on 24 November to a friend’s house, where they discovered her squeezed into a kitchen cupboard in a desperate bid to evade justice. She was pulled from the unit and arrested on eight counts of fraud.
At Maidstone Crown Court on Friday 29 May 2026, the pair’s luck finally ran out. Having both pleaded guilty to their crimes, Kathlene Perry was jailed for three years and three months, while her daughter Siobhan was handed a nine-month prison sentence.
Detective Sergeant Matt Lynch said:
‘We take all reports of crime seriously, particularly where the victim has been targeted because they are very vulnerable.
‘This mother and daughter are serial offenders and officers were quick to identify them as suspects. Hours’ worth of CCTV footage was examined to piece together the extent of their crimes and the pair were tracked down and arrested.
‘These two women have no regard for who they hurt and only focus on what they can steal. In this case, they used money that a pensioner could not afford to lose on fast food and cigarettes. They should be thoroughly ashamed of their actions.’