When his neighbour went into hospital for five months and gave him keys to hand to the landlord a 37-year-old Colwyn Bay man raided his bank account for £13,400 in what a judge described as “callous, despicable offending.”

Lee Robert Lloyd, of Mostyn Road, Colwyn Bay, pleaded guilty to fraud at Mold crown court and to an earlier offence of the theft of two items of heavy machinery and was jailed for 26 months.

The machinery had been stored outdoors at Penrhyn Bay and Lloyd offered them for sale, implicating two innocent people, the prosecution said.

While he was under the separate police investigation he targeted his 62-year-old neighbour, said Judge Niclas Parry, carrying out 52 separate transactions to get money from the bank account.

Mercifully the victim had been compensated by his bank, said the judge.

The neighbour had been in hospital for five months and when he was released became aware that the money was missing.

In an impact statement the victim said he no longer felt safe with Lloyd as a neighbour.