A police officer was forced to quit five months into her job after it emerged that she had received gifts worth more than £34,000 from an 87-year-old widower.

Fatou Mendy-Sambou, 28, resigned from Gwent Police in August last year, after joining in March.

A disciplinary hearing was told she would have been dismissed if she had not resigned over the “inappropriate relationship”.

She also lied about her contact with him.

Mendy-Sambou was struck off by the hearing yesterday after pleading guilty to gross misconduct.

She first met the married pensioner while working as a carer for his wife in 2014, the hearing was told.

But when his wife died in 2015, she visited his home, initiated regular contact with him on the phone and went out for meals with him.

The hearing was told that the elderly man gave Mendy-Sambou gifts including weekly payments of £50, a £2,000 holiday to Paris, flights to Gambia, £2,700 for a master’s degree and £9,000 for a BMW.

She was given a deposit for a house and £750 towards a police training course by the widower, identified only as Mr JB.

Mendy-Sambou, from Newport, was given a £320 Michael Kors watch as a present for her birthday and a silver necklace from Sri Lanka, along with a washing machine, cooker and even a fish tank.