A finance manager was found to have embezzled £600,000 from her employers, but only after she paid a co-worker a pay-rise from her own bank account. Sharon Porter had initially transferred funds from her employer’s account into her own, in order to pay off credit card debts, but she then set up a standing order to receive an additional £100,000 a year. Her act was only caught when she paid a co-worker from her own bank account, after the colleague had been turned down for a pay-rise.
There are many forms of employee fraud, but embezzlement is one of the most commonly used. Employees use a variety of tactics to essentially divert money from the account of the company that they work for into their own account. In the simplest of cases, the money is simply transferred from one bank account to another, although this is a high risk strategy because there is usually a good chance of being caught.
However, newly appointed finance manager Sharon Porter used this technique and was only caught out by her own attempts to do a good deed for a fellow colleague. After just five months of starting in her new role, Porter stole money in order to pay off her credit card debt. Emboldened by the fact that she was not caught out, Porter then set up a standing order and paid herself an additional £100,000 a year.
When a workmate was turned down for a pay-rise, Mrs Porter took it on herself to pay the colleague extra from her own account. Her colleague noticed that her original salary was being paid from the company’s account, but that the rise was coming from Mrs Porter’s personal bank account, and she questioned this with her employers, which is when the fraud was discovered.
The company attempted to come to an agreement with Mrs Porter that would see her repay the money, but when it became evident that she could not afford to do so, the police were called. In total, she stole just under £600,000 and has been sentenced to three years in jail. The judge said that the theft had appeared to have been purely for selfish reasons, and hence there was no alternative to a custodial sentence.