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Bride steals £200,000 from company to fund her 'lavish wedding'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-18523579

A bride who stole £200,000 from her employers to pay for a lavish wedding has been jailed.

Part-time accounts assistant Kirsty Lane, 30, transferred the funds from Pure AV's bank account into that of her and her future husband, Graham.

The fraud was discovered shortly after the pair's wedding at the Great Hall at Mains, near Blackpool in January 2011.

Lane, of Lewis Close, Adlington, Lancashire was sentenced to 20 months in prison at Preston Crown Court.

She stole about £122,000 from the Leyland company, which installs audio-visual equipment, by putting in fake invoices, marking them as paid and then depositing the money into her own account.

She also diverted about £70,000 through her husband's account, which she told him were savings, salary and bonuses. About £6,000 was transferred into a third account.

Company director Peter Sutton said Lane had cost the firm about £300,000, due to tax and VAT payments, and put the "livelihoods of 20-plus people" in jeopardy.
'Lavish wedding'

Police said Lane began working for Pure AV in May 2007 and started siphoning money into her account in December 2008.

A spokesman said the offences had continued until she left the company for her wedding on 23 January 2011 by which time she had made a total of 122 fraudulent transactions.
The Great Hall at Mains Lane spent a large proportion of the money on a lavish wedding at the Great Hall at Mains

He said a large proportion of the money had been used to fund her "lavish wedding" which included a free bar, musicians, fireworks, a magician and face-painting.

He added that Lane had also used the cash to pay for home improvements and items such as a large television, a Tag Heuer watch, an iPod, compact mirrors and car keys covered in Swarovski crystals and personalised car registration plates.

He said she had "abused her position of trust to steal from her employer and fund a lavish lifestyle".

Speaking in Lane's defence, Amanda Johnson said she was a woman of good character who suffered from low self-esteem and the offending coincided with the time she met her husband.

"She felt that money and the trappings that money could buy would make her a more attractive proposition," she said.

She said Lane thought she could "make herself more attractive to him by having money and being able to spend it on gifts and holidays".
'Cynical exploitation'

Passing sentence, Judge Pamela Badley said the "modest" first amounts of cash Lane stole from the company had escalated and gone on to fund a luxury lifestyle.

Judge Badley said her behaviour had been "fraudulent from the outset" and told her she had taken part in a "cynical exploitation of the small company for which you worked".

Speaking after sentencing, Mr Sutton said Lane had been "a trusted member of the team and she had been in that position for a number of years".

He said she defrauded the company in a complex way and there had been no obvious "digital trail".

"We just wanted it over. It's the end of a traumatic time in our existence and the legal system has prevailed," he said.

Graham Lane was found not guilty to one count of money laundering at Preston Crown Court on an earlier date


Damn that must have been one hell of a wedding!
i must say though what a nasty and selfish women, as said in the article she's put at risk the futures of many of her former co-workers from her selfish theft of a small companies money and in times like these £200,000 is a lot of money. I hope she gets a lengthy sentance for this one.

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Oh dear me!:eek:

She just wanted to be a princess for a day, bless her!
Greedy woman. Looking at the size of her, I'm not surprised. Women like her shouldn't be able to feel like a "princess" for a day. She's no princess.
Reply 3
How selfish
She stole from her bosses and then invited them to her wedding that they were unknowingly paying for! You have to admit, she has a strong sense of irony.
Selfish and disgraceful
Reply 6
Original post by Dreamweaver
She stole from her bosses and then invited them to her wedding that they were unknowingly paying for! You have to admit, she has a strong sense of irony.


or just very large cojones :P
Reply 7
Why spend that much on a wedding :/

I'd have decent nice cheap family wedding over that. Well, i have.
Reply 8
The irony that her boss had got her a wedding gift too :') on a serious note, it's absolutely disgusting that people lost their jobs because this greedy cow wanted a big wedding though!
:eek4::eek3:woman be crayzee!
Reply 10
Original post by im so academic
Greedy woman. Looking at the size of her, I'm not surprised. Women like her shouldn't be able to feel like a "princess" for a day. She's no princess.


OH MY ..
Original post by cl_steele
or just very large cojones :P


Or simply a very large food bill from Lidl.

She stole £200,000 but that doesn't buy her class. Neither does it buy her beauty.
Is this woman really a threat to the public?


Not that I'm condoning her behaviour, but I don't think putting her in prison really serves all that much good.
Reply 13
Yet she was drinking Tango.
Original post by Dreamweaver
She stole from her bosses and then invited them to her wedding that they were unknowingly paying for! You have to admit, she has a strong sense of irony.



Original post by cl_steele
or just very large cojones :P


More likely she's just stupid
Original post by im so academic
Greedy woman. Looking at the size of her, I'm not surprised. Women like her shouldn't be able to feel like a "princess" for a day. She's no princess.


Normally I report trolls, but you just provide me with so much entertainment here, so I suppose a thanks is in order

On topic. She's a bloody idiot. That 200K is nothing in the long term
At least she had the day of her life.
Looking at the size of her, she must have spent it all on cream cakes.
Reply 18
Oh my god
:P
Reply 19
I don't understand that why most of the women want to spend too much on their weddings. Haven't they heard of savings for rainy days?


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