A CONNIVING con artist who used a fishing rod and croupier stick to steal people’s post and then their identities was last night starting three years behind bars.

Rachel Allday carried out a near- £30,000 fraud after plundering mailboxes and letterboxes in and around her home town of Guisborough, in east Cleveland.

The 36-year-old used personal details and documents from her victims to make a series of false claims to banks and online shops to obtain cash and goods.

A judge at Teesside Crown Court yesterday rejected her claims that another woman – whose name she gave to police when she was arrested – was the brain behind the crimes.

Judge John Walford also condemned the greed of the unemployed mother-of-three, who he accused of stealing to fund a lifestyle way beyond her means.

The court heard that Allday had three horses and drove a LandRover Freelander despite being on benefits.

Judge Walford said that her “sustained and persistent fraud over a not inconsiderable period” was made worse by previous convictions for dishonesty.

While she was carrying out the scam, Allday appeared before magistrates in Hartlepool in March last year, for using a stolen credit card.

She was arrested a month later when investigations into a fraud against the National Savings and Investments led to an address in Guisborough.

Police found the two adapted tools in the boot of Allday’s car, and a vast stash of credit cards, financial statements and other personal documents in the house.

Allday used the stick and rod to steal personal details of others and plunder their savings, and to create accounts of her own in bogus names, the court heard.

Peter Johnson, mitigating, said Allday still insists she did not act alone, although he accepted neither the police nor the defence team had been able to trace the other woman.

“My client would say she has not benefited anything like £30,000,” Mr Johnson told Judge Walford. “She accepts receiving some money and equine equipment.”

The judge told Allday: “This was a carefully thought-out and planned criminal enterprise. Had it not been for your arrest, you would have gone on and on.”

Allday, of Scaling Court, Guisborough, admitted four fraud charges as well as acquiring criminal property, transferring criminal property and possessing articles for use in fraud.