Chief Financial Officer Treated Media Company as his Piggy-Bank

Fraud in the workplace can be very hard to detect – particularly where trusted senior managers are involved. In one case, the chief financial officer of a leading media company treated it as his personal piggy-bank, helping himself to about £227,000.

The man was jailed for 40 months after pleading guilty to fraud. He admitted that he had made dishonest claims for expenses and other benefits and had raised a series of bogus invoices from a non-existent company over a four-year period. He had used the money to aid him in the purchase of two properties in Portugal.

Following the discovery of his deceit, he had paid back the money and had given up a pension which he had received on being made redundant. He had also paid for the internal investigation into his conduct and his total bill came to about £1.4 million. In those circumstances, the Court of Appeal accepted that there was very substantial mitigation in his case and reduced his sentence by eight months.