Former bank worker jailed over missing £71k from Barclays (From News Shopper)

Former bank worker jailed over missing £71k from Petts Wood Barclays

3:10pm Thursday 10th May 2012 in News By Robert Fisk

A BANK worker has been jailed for creating a false audit trail after more than £71,000 went missing.

Susan Mills was a trusted employee at Barclays Bank for 36 years working at the branch in Station Square, Petts Wood.

But in June 2010 €50,000 (approx £40,000 at today’s rates) and £30,000 disappeared from the bank.

Before being sentenced yesterday (May 9) Croydon Crown Court heard she had told her employer she might have sent the Euros back to foreign exchange company Travelex but could not remember.

And she said she had transferred the sterling to the bank’s reserve with the transaction authorised by the counter manager.

Carys Owen, prosecuting, said Travelex had never received the money and the £30,000 was not in the vault.

The court heard Mills, of Petts Wood Road, Petts Wood, had created a false audit trail and blamed other workers for the missing money.

Ms Owen said: "There was a careful and deliberate action to conceal these lost sums to cover up for the fact that this money was missing from her till."

Mills was sacked after an internal investigation and Barclays Bank settled out of court before an employment tribunal was due to be heard.

The 53-year-old kept protesting her innocence and did not change her plea to guilty for two counts of false accounting until the fifth day of her trial at the same court in March.

Houzla Rawat, mitigating, told the judge her client had been a devoted carer for her mother, who suffered from dementia, before her death.

She also cares for her husband who suffers from heart problems.

In sentencing Mills to 22 months, Judge Heather Baucher said: "You pleaded guilty on the fifth day of the trial because, to quote Sherlock Holmes, you realised that the game was up.

"The prosecution cannot say what happened to the monies; all that they know is that there was a false audit trail in an attempt to conceal your activity.

"I have no doubt for a person like you that has never been in trouble before that the clang of a prison gate is a salutary lesson."