Long standing employee jailed for stealing £520,000

Wednesday 18th November, 2020

A financial controller who admitted to stealing over half a million pounds from her employer has been sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment at Stafford Crown Court.

The court heard that she was in a position of trust and managed the company’s accounts. She abused this trust to take around £520,000 between October 2009 and June 2018.

The money was used to fund a lifestyle well in excess of her legitimate income, including new cars and a holiday home.

She stole the money by transferring money from the business into bank and credit card accounts. She then covered up these payments by way of false accounting.

The court was told that in 2015-16 the company was trading as SPA Automotive Ltd when it then went into liquidation - most likely as a result of the on-going fraud which had not been discovered at that stage, according to the investigation.

The fraud came to light towards the end of May 2018 shortly after she had resigned from the company.

Detective Constable Nicholas Gorman, of Staffordshire Police, said: “It was an appalling breach of trust and, although Caldicott has repaid part of the sum, we are glad she has been sentenced for her actions.”

Richard Barnes, managing director of SPA Design, said: “Lindsay Caldicott worked for me for over 24 years and was trusted with everything I had and considered a close friend. To find over two years ago she was guilty of stealing between £9k and £12k a month for years was a great shock.

“Good, hard working staff lost their jobs through her dishonesty. She perpetrated a clever fraud of keeping two sets of books that hid cash taken and that was allocated to unpaid suppliers. She had multiple new cars and a holiday home on the Yorkshire coast."