A Purley grandmother collapsed in court as she was jailed for helping a gang make millions by stealing the homes of the elderly.

Surjeet Chana, 64, was a key figure in a plot which also involved a solicitor and bank manager.

The trio, all charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, were recruited by a criminal gang to target and sell empty houses, some of which belonged to elderly or vulnerable people who had moved into nursing homes.

Chana, a clerk who worked in customer services at the Land Registry headquarters in Croydon, would supply the title deeds and owners' signatures so they could be forged. When her home was searched, police found £38,000 hidden in the loft.

Today, she was sentenced to three years and nine months behind bars after nine properties worth about £3.8 million, were targeted in Purley, Streatham, Wallington and Wimbledon.

Sentencing Chana of Foxley Lane, Purley, at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Michael Grieve QC said she had committed a serious breach of trust as a Land Registry clerk.

Another key conspirator was Charles Spiropoulos, 48, a solicitor who carried out the conveyancing and collected money from the house sales, knowing they were fraudulent. He was jailed for four years.

A 42-year-old Barclays bank manager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, helped the gang to launder the proceeds without reporting it to money-laundering investigators. He was also sentenced to four years in prison.

The group would identify homes by putting up the board of a bogus security firm and inviting calls from the house's owners.

If no-one called they boarded up the property, changed the locks and sold it.

Detective Chief Inspector Jonathan Benton of the Met's Economic and Specialise Crime Command said: "This joint investigation, by detectives involved dismantling drugs gangs on the one hand and financial investigators investigating fraud on the other.

"Money laundering investigators will pursue criminals and continue to remove the illicit finances that fund illegal activity."