CPS lovers lived the high life by cheating taxpayers out of £1m
Student, 19, mauled by 400lb tiger in Thailand
ENJOYING the trip of a lifetime to Thailand, university student Isabelle Brennan strokes a young tiger at a popular tourist attraction – one of the few places in the world where you can pet the lethal animals while they sleep.
But just minutes after this photo was taken, another 400lb tiger leapt into the frame, knocking the 19-year-old to the ground with its paw and sinking its teeth into her thigh.
She was saved when keepers at the Tiger Temple sanctuary in West Thailand TWO Crown Prosecution Service staff who swindled more than £1million from the taxpayer to fund a high-rolling lifestyle were each jailed for six years yesterday.
Finance manager Lisa Burrows, 42, and her boyfriend, Tahir Mahmood, 50, worked ‘as a team’ to rake in up to £4,000 a week in a ‘colossal’ fraud stretching over five years.
They set up a fake taxi firm to lodge hundreds of claims for non-existent journeys, which they claimed were to transport witnesses to and from court.
The pair spent thousands of pounds on designer clothes, jewellery and holidays in New York, Spain and Dubai, cleared credit card debts and a mortgage, and put down a £20,000 cash deposit on a bungalow.
They were so arrogant they named the fake taxi firm B&M Taxis, which stood for their surnames.
Yesterday the lovers showed no emotion as they were jailed for what a judge described as a ‘gross abuse of trust’.
Birmingham Crown Court heard that Burrows – who had worked at the CPS for more than 20 years – met Mahmood in an internet chat room in early 2008.
He was a taxi driver and she began giving him legitimate driving work with the CPS at the Birmingham office where she worked.
Prosecutor Brian Dean said Burrows was aware of the vast sums of money the service spent on taxis.
Mahmood quickly suggested the fraud and within months of meeting the pair had set up the fictitious company. The court heard he had changed his name by deed poll to jumped between her and the animal, while her sister and travelling companion Georgie, 21, dragged her to safety.
Eight weeks on, Miss Brennan is recovering at home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, but is still unable to walk unaided, while doctors said four-inch wound will leave her scarred for life.
The University College London student wants to warn others of the dangers of approaching the orphaned tigers, which are hand-reared by Buddhist monks at the controversial sanctuary. Joseph O’Neil to set up the account for the bogus taxi firm.
Burrows signed off the invoices while Mahmood ‘ held the purse strings’ managing the account and withdrawing the money.
Last year, Burrows found her lover work as a trainee administrator at the same CPS office, but the pair kept their relationship a secret from colleagues.
The scam was missed by four annual audits and was only uncovered in February when a colleague became suspicious of the amount Burrows was paying to B&M Taxis.
By the time the pair were arrested later that month, they had stolen £1,021,475. Police found 11 B&M Taxis invoices in Burrows’ handbag which were ready to be submitted.
Mahmood, who has children from a previous relationship, was discovered to have withdrawn more than £985,000 from the dummy account.
Financial investigators discovered that Burrows, who earned £24,000 a year as a regional finance manager, spent almost £250,000 on her Marks & Spencer credit card during the fraud.
They found a receipt for an £8,000 luxury hotel stay in New York and a bill for a £10,000 trip to the five-star Dubai Jumeirah Beach Hotel. Burrows bought dozens of designer handbags and jewellery from high- end shops including Tiffany’s and Prada and the department store Bloomingdale’s, while Mahmood was found to have put down the cash deposit on the bungalow in Erdington, Birmingham.
Mr Dean said: ‘The money was spent on high living, foreign holidays, designer handbags, jewellery, expensive meals and deposits on properties. Burrows identified that the CPS spent considerable sums on taxis. They decided to exploit that by making claims for nonexistent journeys.
‘Mahmood played a full and significant role in the conspiracy in the initial planning of the fraud and by ensuring that they could get their hands on the money in cash form by setting up bank accounts in false names. They were caught red-handed and had little option but to plead guilty.’
He said investigators are still working to discover how more than £660,000 of the stolen public money was spent.
Burrows, of Oldbury, West Midlands, and Mahmood, of Hodge Hill, Birmingham, admitted a single count of conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position between January 1, 2008 and February 28, 2013.
Judge William Davis QC said they had carried out a ‘huge fraud on the public purse causing substantial losses to a department already under serious financial pressure.’
He added: ‘The fraud was motivated purely by greed.
‘The fact the fraud involved the Crown Prosecution Service and was committed by a senior member of that service – the body responsible for bringing criminals to justice – will have affected and eroded public confidence in that service.’