A woman who took money from TT fans for accommodation she never provided has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Kathryn Kelly, of Drury Terrace, Douglas, admitted five counts of theft after she took £700 from two separate visitors then stopped replying to their messages shortly before the start of last year’s TT festival.

We previously reported that Kelly, aged 46, had offered to rent accommodation to two separate TT fans for June 2018.

She took deposits and further payments via cash and bank transfers totalling £370 from one fan and £330 from the other.

Kelly communicated with the two visitors via Facebook messenger but two weeks prior to the TT she cut off all communication. The two fans had to find alternative accommodation.

Kelly was arrested and admitted taking £700 from the two men. She told police she had originally intended to provide accommodation as she had been due to go to France but said that her plans had changed.

Kelly said she also had personal issues and had ’blotted everything out’, admitting she stopped communicating with the men without attempting to pay any money back.

She was asked why she had taken two bookings when she only had one flat. She claimed that a friend had offered her the use of a second flat. However, no evidence of this was found. A basis of plea was accepted in which Kelly said the offence had not been dishonest from the outset and that she had initially intended to provide the accommodation.

Meanwhile, Kelly also admitted stealing goods from Superdrug on October 3 and Marks and Spencer on December 24.

The total value of the goods from both stores was £109. All the items were recovered.

Magistrates sentenced Kelly to three months’ custody for the accommodation-related offences and one month for the shop thefts, to run concurrently but all suspended for 12 months.