Bank clerk stole £500,000 to feed gambling habit
12 April 2006
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| Sharna Baker |
A BANK clerk stole almost half-a-million pounds from bosses to feed her internet gambling addiction, a court heard.
Sharna Baker, 26, had sold her flat and blown £90,000 of her own money betting on horse-racing and football before she started to take from the Japanese merchant bank where she worked.
The accounts payment officer, of Myles Court, Goffs Oak, had been given a password by senior managers which allowed her to funnel money meant for suppliers to herself, the Old Bailey heard.
After diverting the cash to five accounts she had set up, she would immediately place wagers of up to £10,000.
Baker, who is five months pregnant, wept in the dock as the court heard how she would wait by the office printer to rip off confirmations of money transfers and destroy them.
The court heard Baker was headhunted by City bank UFJ International despite having three convictions for dishonesty as a teenager.
Her scam was only discovered a month after she had been made redundant. The bank contacted Baker and she admitted taking £30,000.
John Elliott, prosecuting, said: "In fact she had stolen £460,940.77."
The money had been taken in just five months in 127 separate transactions.
Julian Goose, defending, said Baker's gambling was "completely out of control".
He said: "Her betting was initially successful. Never before had she been someone who gambled and she became quickly hooked.
"She disposed of all her own assets. Several times a day she was gambling large sums of money.
"She had no idea how much money she had taken. When she was told by the police she was utterly shocked.
Addiction
"This was not greed to improve her life but an addiction to gambling."
Mr Goose added: "This defendant is utterly shattered by what she has done and she has lost everything."
Baker admitted nine specimen charges of obtaining money transfers by deception.
Judge Peter Beaumont gave her a 51-week jail sentence, suspended for two years, telling her she had been the victim "of a disease".
He said: "You offended not because you are an innately dishonest person but for a comparatively short period of time of your life you became ill.
"Your gambling, on the scale it was and with an incomprehensible disregard for the consequences, was in practical terms a disease."
Baker will be electronically tagged and have to attend Gamblers Anonymous. She will also have to appear before the judge for review hearings every three months.
"Make no mistake about it, you are under house arrest for the next two years to ensure your disease can be cured," the judge added.
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