AN “IMMATURE” teenager stole her grandmother’s life savings with her former lover to go on a spending spree, a court heard.

Lydia Washer and George Hedley lavished themselves with expensive gifts and meals out after they found the money hidden in a drawer.

During their sustained theft, iMacs, vinyl record players and Apple Watches were all purchased with the money, which Southampton Crown Court heard the victim had been saving to pay for her own funeral.

Washer, now 18, found more than £8,000 cash in her mother’s home after it was moved there following the deterioration of her grandmother’s health.

Prosecutor Jane Terry told the court that Washer found the money when she had gone looking in the drawer for batteries.

But upon finding the funds, she and then boyfriend Hedley, 19, went about spending the money.

Washer, a hairdressing apprentice working in Bitterne, cried throughout the hearing as the “seriousness” of her and Hedley’s crimes unravelled.

Hedley, an aspiring sales assistant at a branch of Debenhams where he is trusted with the safe key and cashing up, was supported by his family.

Both admitted theft at Southampton Magistrates’ Court in May, with Washer also pleading guilty to a charge of fraud by purchasing £2,000 worth of electrical equipment on her grandmother’s card.

Rose Burns, mitigating for Washer, told the court that since the incident her client had made suicide attempts as well as self-harming.

Joanne Chester, mitigating for Hedley, said the crimes were “nasty” and her client’s mother had taken out a £4,000 loan to try and pay back the money to the grandmother.

Washer, of Cranbury Terrace, Southampton, and Hedley, of Alexander Grove, Fareham, were sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and both were ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work.

Hedley was given 12 months to pay £6,000 back to the victim.