BOOKKEEPER, 73, STOLE £800,000 FROM WINE SHOP OVER 12 YEARS
BETRAYED OWNER IN ‘TOTAL DISBELIEF’ AS WOMAN IS JAILED FOR FRAUD
A BOOKKEEPER helped herself to more than £800,000 from a wine shop in Nottingham during a fraud lasting 12 years.
Patricia Mann, 73, of Pilot Drive, Hucknall, was sent to prison for 45 months when she appeared before Nottingham Crown Court.
Judge Julie Warburton, who told the pensioner she will serve half her sentence and the remainder on licence, said to her in the dock: “I cannot conceive any other reason why you committed this offence, other than greed.”
Terry Rockley, managing director and owner of Vintage Wines Ltd, based in Derby Road, which imports and sells fine wines, said after the hearing: “I think the whole staff feel shocked and betrayed by what she did and the people she knew at the bank.”
His devastation at Mann’s actions was also revealed in court in a victim impact statement read out before she was sentenced.
Mann had previously pleading guilty to fraud by abuse of position.
The statement said that Mr Rockley was in “total disbelief”, adding that Mann had been employed to clear up following an almost identical crime.
Hal Ewing, prosecuting, said Mann joined the company in 2004 after the previous bookkeeper was also found to have defrauded the company.
Mann was made aware of this, he told the court, when she took over the role. She came to the company “highly recommended” and she fitted
in very well, the accounts were “very well presented” and the business was good in the years following her taking over, he said.
But behind his back Mann had paid more than £800,000 into her personal bank accounts and a business she ran between 2004 and 2018.
In mitigation, Nicola Hornby said: “She is at a loss to really explain exactly why it all started and indeed why it continued in the way it did and escalated.”
A significant portion had gone to propping up her business, added Miss Hornby.
“On a rough estimate 25 percent has gone to that.
“There isn’t evidence to an extravagant lifestyle led by this woman.”
She has repaid £50,000 which will ultimately form part of a proceeds of crime application.
The judge said for some years after she had joined the company it was in a good financial position “but unbeknown to Mr Rockley you had already begun to steal from it”.
She said that in 2016 the business did not seem to be doing well.
There was a down-flow of cash and Mr Rockley injected a significant amount of personal capital into the company.
She spoke of the business being forced to sell assets, and there were job losses.
By 2018 things had not improved.
Mr Rockley was contacted by the bank concerned about the company’s cash-flow problems and he asked his accountants to conduct an inquiry which led to the revelation Mann was transferring company cash to accounts she controlled.
She did this by the means of bogus invoices and manipulating the stock levels so there was no deficit or alarming movements in percentages.
After Mann was confronted, she initially stalled but later admitted she had been stealing to the tune of £50,000 over a two-year period which the judge said “wasn’t even close to the truth when the overall scale of the fraud was over £800,000 over a period of 12 years”.
The case comes after two thieves tunnelled into the cellar of the shop and stole £250,000-worth of stock last October – but left behind a priceless bottle once owned by Whitney Houston.
The duo, who claimed to be tenants of a nearby property when they were caught, and have since been sentenced, also left behind a £100,000 bottle of wine during the raid.