You were right, it's the laptop that was compromised. Hence the hack on Wordpress which got the account suspended. I removed the Wordpress sites but the account kept sending emails, Turns out the laptop had been compromised and that's how they kept getting in.
I have bought a new laptop purely for work (old laptop was shared by family). It's running the latest Windows 11 and Kaspersky Anti virus
I have also instituted a policy for changing email passwords at least once per month
Also, I will be logging in to check the email logs daily (Is there a way this can be automated?)
I believe these changes will ensure my account is never running afoul again.
Let me know if there's anything more I can do to secure my account