26-year-old hired every room in a cliff-top hotel, laid on a fireworks display and even bought Armani bracelets for guests.
26-year-old hired every room in a cliff-top hotel, laid on a fireworks display and even bought Armani bracelets for guests.An accountant who swindled u00a3470,000 (Rs 3.5 crore) from her employer to fund an extravagant lifestyle, including a lavish dream wedding at a cliff-top hotel, has been jailed for two years.
Joanne Kent (26) wept in the dock as Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how she was caught despite making sophisticated attempts to cover her tracks by deleting computer records.
The court heard how the married mother-of-two, from Cornwall, handed Armani bracelets out as gifts at her wedding to husband David in Newquay in 2007.
Kent, whose children are aged three years and two months, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to theft and fraud against Walsall-based Wilson UK Ltd.
Kent, who sat with her head bowed through the hearing, perpetrated 37 individual frauds against Wilson, which makes equipment for the oil industry.
Phillips said Kent joined the accounts department at Wilson which has an annual turnover of up to u00a317 million in 2002 and worked her way up to the position of team leader.
Between June 2005 and April 2007, Kent took u00a3475,892 by diverting payments apparently being made to creditors into her bank accounts.
"She used the money in part to fund an extravagant lifestyle," said Phillips. "By her own admission, she admits she spent u00a350,000 (Rs 37 lakh) on her wedding.
The hotel bill came to u00a337,134 (Rs 27 lakh), without flowers, cars and fireworks on the beach."
Kent also invested in property and told friends that she had bought a Mazda and an Audi.
"She had told members of staff that she had inherited money from her grandfather," added Phillips.
Judge Challinor said the fraud was only traced because Kent created a false invoice relating to an American company in pounds rather than dollars.
