Natalie Saul, a 37-year-old mother-of-one from Wansworth, South London, stole £350,000 from her technology firm primarily to feed an online poker addiction. According to DailyMail, Saul created over 400 fake invoices to get money from the software company between March 2015 and December 2016. She lost over £250,000 playing online poker during that time.
The scam was finally discovered by another accountant in December 2016 when Saul was on maternity leave. She only confessed her crimes after being approached by her employer.
Saul was sentenced two weeks ago
Judge Catherine Newman was initially considering a prison sentence of three years and four months but then changed her mind after talking to Saul's lawyer, who managed to convince the judge that Saul wasn't ‘fit for prison'.
Instead of three years behind bars, Saul was only slapped with a two-year suspended sentence, 250 hours of community work and ordered to pay £360 in costs, or just about £10 for every £1000 stolen from her company.
Judge Newman changed to a suspended sentence after finding out that Saul was a committed charity worker and a hard working responsible citizen always paying her taxes.
Judge Newman told Southwark Crown Court Saul was 'not the general stuff of which the prison population is made."
She added; ‘I'm taking a considerable risk that the Crown will think it lenient and appeal, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.'
source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781536/Accountant-stole-350-000-firm-walks-free.html
