A court has jailed a grandmother for stealing from her boss to fund holidays abroad.
Bolton Crown Court today sentenced Patricia Bennett, 69, to 18 months for making off with £163,000 over thirteen years from her job as an accounts manager.
Bennett used the illicit proceeds of her scheme to fund caravanning holidays and trips to Spain, as well as a pop-up pub in the back of her newly refurbished garden in Crossdale Road, Hindley Green, near Wigan.
She siphoned the money stolen from her employer J Shaw Electricals in Westbroughton, Greater Manchester, into three bank accounts – one in her name, another in the name of her husband of 50 years.
After police launched an investigation into suspicious transactions at the firm, Bennett, whose son in law is incidentally himself a police officer, posted several pictures on social media of herself and her family enjoying trips abroad.
Uploaded in the months after her retirement, one such post boasted of it being ‘wine o’clock’ while on a caravan trip to the Lake District, adding: ‘On the road to our happy place. It’s been a long time coming but we’re off – and the sun is shining.
David Whitehead, 62, who runs J Shaw Electricals with his younger brother Christopher and had worked with Bennett for more than 25 years, told the court on Friday: ‘We’re a small family business and we like to think there is a family atmosphere with the business.
‘Patricia was brought into our family almost 25 years ago and we trusted her.’
He added: ‘Had we known she had financial difficulties we would have helped her. The major thing we feel is the betrayal she perpetrated on us over a long period of time.
‘I still wake up at night now as I just cannot believe this has happened.’
During mitigation, defence counsel Miss Niamh McGinty said her client wanted ‘to express an unreserved apology’.
She said: ‘She is deeply ashamed of her actions, carries the guilt with her and she recognises she has brought shame on her family.’
Nevertheless, sentencing judge Martin Walsh told her: ‘I recognise the deep sense of hardship prison will cause to you and your family – but this was deliberate dishonesty over a protracted period of time.
‘And there was a deep sense of betrayal inflicted upon your former employer.’
Bennett will now face a proceeds of crime hearing to ascertain whether and how her illicit gains might be returned to the victims.
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