A head accountant for a top firm has been jailed after she took “carefully planned steps” to defraud her company out of close to £130,000.
Nicola Clarke had been abusing her position at the Stockport-based firm Business Computer Projects Ltd since 2008 to steal in “discreet ways.”
Minshull Street Crown Court heard that the 56-year-old had spent more than a decade claiming unauthorised overtime payments, stealing petty cash, and using the company’s credit card without permission.
Clarke, who had worked for the company since 1987, was found out in June 2019 when it was discovered she was using the credit card. At the time, she claimed she had been using it for six months and promised to pay the company back, but she later accepted she had been defrauding her employer for 11 years.
A full investigation took place which revealed the full extent of Clarke’s dishonesty. She pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to three charges of fraud by abuse of position and was jailed for 18 months.
Pierce Power, prosecuting, said Clarke had claimed a number of overtime payments, but they were not authorised, nor did she request for them to be authorised.
He said: “She paid herself overtime without any paperwork – and took careful steps to avoid getting caught.”
As the head of accounts, Clarke held sole responsibility for all of the financial aspects of the company.
Mr Power said: “She deliberately omitted to record her overtime, and instead recorded the money in a separate section that was for business use and all aggregated together. So the management account did not show any payment to her.”
After Clarke’s dismissal in 2019, the company embarked on an investigation into the petty cash, which would be used to reimburse colleagues for expenses, as long as the receipt was provided. Clarke had claimed large payments for fuel using the petty cash.
She had also used the company credit card, which she had access to from 2010 to 2019.
Mr Power said: “The defendant’s payslips were recovered and examined and showed no repayments for the credit card payments.
“There were very large payments spent on the credit card and and it was never repaid.”
The court heard that all purchases over £50 had to have a signature from a director and the rules of the card prohibited personal spending without prior confirmation.
Clarke had taken “carefully planned steps” to hide her use of the card, and had even forged the signature on at least two occasions.
In total, the amount of overtime she paid to herself was £15,746; the amount of petty cash taken was £7,959, and the amount spent on the credit card was £104,647.
In a statement, the company said it spent up to £80,000 pursuing the investigation, which cost them a great deal of time and effort. They also said it affected the time they had to concentrate on customers and growing the business.
Mitigating, Rebecca Penfold, said Clarke suffered with her health, as a result of having a stroke in 2024 and a diagnoses of chronic pancreatitis.
Ms Penfold said Clarke had put her family home up for sale with the intent of the proceeds being used to recompense the company.
She said: “The reason why she committed the offence was for a better life for her daughter – it was a gross error on her part… She says how very sorry she is for what happened.”
Jailing Clarke, of Elm Tree Road, Bredbury, for 21 months, Judge Kevin Slack said: “This was sustained fraud on a large scale. I am told you are remorseful, but you have spent many months if not years of burying your head in the sand.”
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh
