04 March 2024
Northern Divers Ltd, found themselves in a bit of bother when their payroll assistant, Angela Hunter, paid themselves an extra £84,848 because they were “paid a pittance”.
During the pandemic the team switched from paying employees cash for accommodation costs to using bank transfers. At this point Hunter added her own name to a list used as part of the process and made over 200 separate transfers to herself over the course of three years.
Hunter was convicted of theft by employee at Hull Magistrates in January and ordered to carry out an unpaid work requirement of 150 hours with a 12 month suspended sentence.
The pandemic brought a lot of changes in very short order, and it seems that some processes may have been changed at Northern Divers Ltd without the required oversight and due diligence to prevent fraudulent actors taking advantage. This should be a lesson that even during the toughest of times, new processes need to have adequate prevention or detection methods in place for improper use.
Hunter’s justification concerning the actions were that the managing director “had been rich and only paid her and the other girls a pittance and when she previously asked for a pay rise gave her one of three per cent, £45 a month.”
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