Gambling addict who stole £200,000 from boss

A COMPANY manager who stole more than £200,000 from her boss to fund a six-year gambling addiction was jailed yesterday for 28 months.

Bookmaker’s daughter Deborah Perry, 51, took at least £30,000 a year by using correction fluid to fiddle figures on spreadsheets before spending the money at betting shops.

When the thefts were uncovered, two innocent work colleagues were wrongly suspended at a disciplinary meeting that Perry attended.

She eventually confessed when auditors realised money was going missing across all seven branches of Homefair Blinds and Shutters. Perry was the firm’s North West area manager based in Denton, Manchester.

It emerged that at the time she was stealing from her employer she also inherited £56,000 from her father after his death from cancer which she used to buy a house. Company owner Stuart Ellithon said in a statement that £393,000 of funds had been unaccounted for and that Perry, pictured, had not paid back any money.

Perry admitted theft at Manchester Crown Court, but only accepted stealing £200,000 between 2013 and 2019. She blamed her offending on the ‘stress’ of looking after her husband after he suffered brain damage in a motorbike accident.

Sentencing her, Judge Hilary Manley said: ‘I accept that you had personal difficulties… [but] the effect on the business has been far-reaching and certainly damaging.’

Mr Ellithon said in his statement the firm, which had to pay nearly £50,000 in tax and interest on the stolen money, had struggled to survive the pandemic, with 50 staff losing their jobs.

In mitigation, defence counsel Rachel White said that after experiencing financial difficulties Perry ‘borrowed’ money from the firm.

But she spent the money on betting and got ‘stuck in a cycle of offending – the gambling was clearly an addiction’, the lawyer added.