Companies swindled out of more than £200,000

Sep 10 2008 by Hilary Clixby, The Journal

A CONWOMAN plundered two North East-based companies out of nearly £200,000 to fund her extravagant lifestyle during a five-year web of deception.

Katie McNeill had already milked an Essex-based training services firm out of more than £12,000 when she duped Eshott Hall Estates in Northumberland into employing her as a personal assistant.

She was dismissed for computer misuse after which it was discovered she had used the company’s money for her own personal benefit to the tune of just more than £31,000 – much of it being spent on the extensive refurbishment of her rented coastal home.

But undeterred she went on to swindle Tyneside-based security firm Team Savant out of £166,000 while working as an office manager, using some of the money to pay her solicitor’s fees, Newcastle Crown Court was told.

Yesterday McNeill, 36, of Grove Park Crescent, Newcastle was jailed for three years after admitting offences of theft, obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and fraud between 2002 and 2007.

Geoff Mason, prosecuting, said McNeill moved to the North-East after being dismissed from her job as a personal assistant in Essex by which time she had defrauded the company out of more than £12,000.

She was discovered to have made out one cheque to pay her landlord and diverted money from the company account to lease a Saab car, pay a £378.29 hotel bill and £582 on a “pampering” day at a luxury spa as well as order £2,591 worth of curtains for her home.

But in May 2006 while on bail for the offences, she found work with Eshott Hall Estates near Morpeth through a recruitment agency , working as personal assistant to Timothy Sanderson.

“In the course of her employment, an issue arose about her misuse of the computer in matters unrelated to the business of the Eshott Hall Estate,” said Mr Mason.

“She was warned about this, persisted in misusing the computer and was dismissed on the grounds she had misused the firm’s computer. After her departure it became apparent she had been misusing her employer’s money and indeed credit cards for her own personal use.”

Her deception included funding a lengthy unauthorised hotel stay using the company credit card and setting up a direct debit to acquire a Freelander Landrover car for her own use.

She also used the company credit card to fund “substantial” improvements to her rented home in Cresswell, Northumberland refurbishing it “from top to bottom”.

Mr Mason said it was while Mr Sanderson was discovering the fraud that McNeill was employed in a key position as an office manager with Newcastle-based Team Savant Ltd in December 2006 after submitting a dishonest personal CV. Within weeks she began abusing her position of trust using the company’s cheques and debit card to cheat the firm, out of £166,000 in part by obtaining services through a concierge company and even paying a £3,000 solicitor’s bill incurred through her earlier crimes.

Jailing McNeill, Judge Esmond Faulks said she had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty and it was apparent she had mental health problems, but aggravating features of her case were the breach of trust, the number of offences some of which were committed on bail and the amount of money involved.

The judge told her: “Over those years, you were living the high life at the expense of others.

“You obtained a staggering amount of money from your various employers. The agreed figure is in excess of £210,000. A prison sentence is inevitable.”

Lisa Judge, defending, said McNeill, a university drop-out, had behaved in an “utterly bizarre” way in that she made no attempt to disguise her crimes and she was “always going to be found out”.