A financial controller who worked for a motorcycle off-road clothing company has been jailed after he stole £90,000 by using Tippex to doctor invoices.
William Fenton, 40, of Mansell Copse Walk, Exeter, admitted fraud and was jailed for two years by Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, at Exeter Crown Court.
The court heard Fenton was responsible for sending out invoices which he altered, substituting his own bank account details for those of his employer, Clyst Honiton-based One Industries, so clients unwittingly paid him. He paid off £10,000 in credit card debts and then went on a spending spree with a luxury lifestyle including an expensive foreign holiday and a £30,000 BMW.
When his bosses became suspicious they searched his desk and found bottles of correction fluid and little strips of paper which he used to falsify invoices before a photocopied or scanned them.
William Rose, defending, said Fenton was £10,000 in debt to credit cards because he had been redundant for five months before joining the company and started the fraud because most of his salary was going on interest payments. “He made the desperate decision to transfer money to pay off the credit cards and then he carried on because greed got the better of him.”
Rose said Fenton was made bankrupt after being sacked by the company but has succeeded in paying back almost half the money by selling the BMW and making monthly contributions from the salary at his current job.
The judge told him: “You stole a large amount of money over a period of almost a year which you used to pay off your debts, buy a car for £30,000, have an expensive holiday and what you described as an expensive lifestyle.
“This offence was marked by higher culpability because you abused a position of trust.”
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