Tesco has helped to bail out a terminally ill woman who was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of pounds through dodgy gift cards. Valerie Horwood, 81, from Fleet in Hampshire, was conned out of £140,000 by a scammer pretending to be schoolmate-turned-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Horwood had been duped into buying hundreds of Apple gift cards – and thought that due to “Blackmore’s” fame, she couldn’t tell anyone about their conversations online. The 81-year-old, who has since been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was left without enough money to fulfil her final wishes or leave an…