A man who worked in the accounts department of Turner’s of Soham managed to fraudulently divert over £210.000 of the company’s cash into four of his personal bank accounts, a court heard.
George Leech, 20, had worked for the transport company for three years but it was only last July that he carried out his daring plot to defraud them of the cash.
A court was told that he began his campaign of fraud on July 17 and over the following 15 days managed to transfer £214,032 into bank accounts to which he was personally connected.
Such were the amounts that some of the banks into which Leech had transferred the cash got suspicious. They contacted the accounts manager at Turner’s and so began Leech’s exposure.
“I’m glad I got caught,” he told police as he was arrested at Luton airport on August 7 as he was about to board a flight. “It was driving me insane.”
Leech managed to spend nearly £100,000 of the money he stole from Turner’s, feeding a gambling habit in part but also splashing out on an extravagant lifestyle.
He enjoyed “a luxurious lifestyle” the court heard that included gambling but also holidays, designer clothes and tattoos.
Leech was working as an assistant account manager at Turners Ltd, in Soham, when, last summer, he began registering fake companies on their invoice system and linking them to four of his own bank accounts.
Over the next 15 days he transferred £214,032 into the accounts, spread across 16 transactions.
The company’s account manager was contacted by several banks that had seized a total of £116,807 after questioning the legitimacy of some transactions.
Leech was found to be responsible and confessed to what he’d done, as well as to spending a further £97,225.
In interview he admitted he had lost £30,000 gambling, spent £10,000 paying off debt, £14,000 on holidays for his family, £5,000 on a travel card, £2,500 on tattoos and the rest on designer clothing and food.
Leech, of Downham Road, Ely, was sentenced to two years in a young offenders institution at Cambridge Crown Court today (April 25) after pleading guilty to fraud by abuse of position.
DC Martyn Willis said: “Leech had been in his role for three years and abused his position to fund his gambling addiction and a luxurious lifestyle.
“He took advantage of his employer’s trust in order to line his own pockets.”
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