Former nurse who murdered patient stole from eco-shop aiming to rehabilitate ex-prisoners

Former nurse Alison Ramsay, 59, was jailed for life in 2001 for murdering a frail elderly woman by giving her a strong sedative which hadn’t been prescribed for the patient, York Crown Court heard.

She was released on parole in November 2017 and given a managerial role at Shared Earth, the ethical gift-and-furnishings shop in York which gives certain jobs to ex-prisoners as part of their rehabilitation.

Ramsay, who also has a past caution for obtaining property by deception, was trusted with the general running of the shop and closing the tills each day and had 10-to-12 people working under her.

By October 2022, about four years after Ramsay landed the job, the shop’s retail director noticed some financial “irregularities”.

These “discrepancies” appeared on the company’s spreadsheets and other documents and revealed a “reducing amount of money placed into bank bags and bank books”.

Company bosses checked missing till receipts and found that Ramsay had been altering spreadsheets and other documents relating to the shop’s takings and was stealing between £30 and £100 at a time.

The retail director relayed her concerns to the managing director and challenged Ramsay about what looked like systematic theft. The former nurse owned up straight away.

The investigation revealed that £26,672 appeared to have gone missing over the four-year period. However, Ramsay only admitted stealing £17,000 and the prosecution accepted that basis of plea as there may have been some “system errors” in calculating the larger figure.

Whatever the true figure, Ms Katsoulakis said there had been a “vast amount of concealment” on Ramsay’s part.

Ramsay, of no fixed address, was charged with theft by employee and pleaded guilty. She appeared for sentence via video link today after being remanded in Styal women’s prison in Cheshire.

Wearing a yellow cardigan and white T-shirt, bespectacled Ramsay spoke in a soft, lilting Scottish accent entirely at odds with her criminal record.

Prosecutor Aimilia Katsoulakis said Ramsay was currently serving her life sentence for murder after being recalled to prison in 2022 following her arrest for the thefts.

Ramsay was on prison licence during the “prolonged” thieving spree, having been released from jail in 2017.

Ms Katsoulakis said that shortly after her release, Ramsay was given the manager’s job at Shared Earth, in Minster Gates, which helped ex-offenders “re-enter society (through) employment”.

The court heard that in addition to receiving the life sentence for murder in 2001, Ramsay was sentenced to a further 30 months in prison for an associated offence of perverting the course of justice.

She was working as a nurse when she murdered the elderly woman by administering a strong, unprescribed sedative which her colleagues smelt in the patient’s food. They alerted the authorities and Ramsay was arrested. She denied murder but was found guilty after a trial.

She was given a life sentence and a further two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for perverting the course of justice in that she staged attacks on her own home to try to give the impression that the ‘real’ perpetrator was out to get her.

Ramsay’s plot was stymied by CCTV footage from around her home which showed she had staged the whole thing. She ultimately admitted the offence after being presented with the video evidence.

She had initially been serving her life sentence at Askham Grange Prison in York but was released partway through, shortly before landing the job at Shared Earth, the fair-trade shop in the shadows of York Minster which sells ethical and recycled gifts.

Defence barrister Joel Wootton said Ramsay was “incredibly remorseful” for betraying the trust of her former employer which gave her a chance to “start afresh”.

“She fully accepts that she has thrown that back in their face by stealing from them over a prolonged period…and she has no doubt exploited them for her own personal gain,” he added.

Ramsay was not eligible to a parole hearing for the life sentence until December or January next year.

Mr Wootton said that Ramsay had a supportive partner who was standing by her.

Judge Simon Hickey told Ramsay she had stolen from an ethical company which had given her a “very trusted” position and an “invaluable opportunity” to try to get her back on her feet.

“(You were) trusted because of the very nature of the Shared Earth ethos…and there must be very deserving ex-prisoners or prisoners on licence that could have had your job,” he added.

He said Ramsay’s rampant thievery was a breach of an “extremely high degree of trust” placed in her by Shared Earth.

Ramsay was jailed for 20 months in addition to the time she still had to serve for murder.

Jeremy Piercy, Shared Earth’s managing director, said he forgave Ramsay and insisted that his ethical company would continue to hire ex-prisoners.

“Obviously her behaviour was not what we want of a manager,” he added.

“She deceived us and we lost money as a result. She is her own worst enemy; she has ruined her own life by what she’s done, so she has done far more harm to herself than to Shared Earth, and whilst obviously we don’t want something like that happen again, it doesn’t change our policy to help prisoners to get back into the community.