A callous thief who preyed on the sick and vulnerable has been jailed after a judge told her she had "stretched the court's patience to breaking point".

When caught, Donna Beverley made up vicious lies against her victims to try to wriggle out of her crimes.

But now the 37-year-old drug addict, of Appledore Close, Margate, has been jailed for 40 months after Judge Simon James said she deserved no sympathy for her "shameful allegations".

Prosecutor Ian Foinette told Canterbury Crown Court how burglar Beverley had carried out three raids at a complex that houses vulnerable people in Margate.

The thief – who has 26 previous convictions, including for burglary - tricked her way into the flats of three victims in August last year, including a man who is paralysed.

She was allowed into the home by a carer who thought she was a friend who had come to visit the man. But while everyone was distracted, she stole tobacco.

Then she conned her way into the home of a woman suffering from spina bifida and pocketed a pot containing coins.

Mr Foinette said Beverley later returned to the flats in Margate to check to see if her thefts had been discovered.

Two weeks later, she talked her way into the home of a man suffering from cerebral palsy - claiming she was looking for a friend.

"The victim was watching TV and heard a knock at the door and discovered Beverley standing there claiming she needed directions to Richmond Road," said Mr Foinette.

"Then she claimed she had walked from Ramsgate and needed a drink of water, but after she had left it was discovered a wallet with £430.45 inside had gone.

"When she was questioned she put a totally different gloss on what she said had happened.

"She then made some highly unpleasant and disgraceful allegations against the victim, no doubt in the hope he would be embarrassed and not give evidence against her. None of what she said was true."

Peter Alcock, for Beverley, who pleaded guilty to burglary and asked for two similar offences to be considered, said she was a drug addict and asked for her to be given treatment for her problems.

He added: "She can't turn back the clock and she is extremely sorry for what she did."

Judge James told her: "You inveigled your way into one of your victim's homes and then distracted him before stealing a not inconsiderable sum of money.

"This was a mean and calculated offence. This was not an isolated offence, but the last in a series of similar offences."

The judge said courts in the past had shown Beverley "considerable leniency" and had "bent over backwards to give her chance after chance".

"Time after time, you have been given the chance to change but you have been unable or unwilling to grasp those previous opportunities.

"This can no longer be all about you. I have to consider your victims and the fact that time and again you have committed mean and serious offences with no thought about anybody but yourself. You have stretched the court's patience to breaking point."

In jailing her, the judge said "honest, decent and hard working people" would think it an injustice if she did not go straight to prison.