A crooked solicitor who spent a third of an elderly client’s £1m estate has agreed to pay most of it back.

Greedy Peter Philip Taylor, 65, took the money from Mary Wallace after he was granted sole power of attorney for her finances.

The former partner at legal firm Nightingales, based in Poynton, used the money to pay off his mortgage and make improvements to his home.

He stole cash using a bank card, wrote cheques out to himself, sold her AstraZeneca shares and put some in his own name.

Taylor spent a third of the £1m estate which had been left to the Salvation Army, Alzheimer’s Society and the Animal Defence League, when she died in 2014.

He also stole £7,798 from another client, who died in 2012, by selling her shares.

In April, Taylor, of Ascot Close, Congleton, was jailed for three years after admitting two charges of theft and four charges of fraud.

At a proceeds of crime hearing at Chester Crown Court on Friday, Taylor agreed to pay back £308,280 of the £370,000 he stole.