Greedy fraudster swindled £600,000 from firm contributing to 125 job losses in Portsmouth
A crooked accountant at a medical firm contributed to more than 125 of her colleagues losing their jobs in Portsmouth by defrauding the business out of more than £600,000, a court heard.
Greedy fraudster Jolene Groves may have pilfered as much as £1.6 million from the firm during her six year long crime spree, a judge was told.
Such was the scale of the 47-year-old's fraud that the company got into financial difficulty, leading to the closure of their Portsmouth site resulting in mass redundancies.
She has now been jailed for four years with a judge saying her behaviour had a 'considerable impact' on her employers. Winchester Crown Court heard Groves started working at medical devices manufacturer Nolato Jaycare in 2007.
Ten years later she exploited a 'flaw' in the company's payments system to begin directing funds away from suppliers to her own bank accounts, prosecutors said, 'covering her tracks' until in 2023 she was caught out by a supplier raising an issue about a payment.
The court heard that a company investigation revealed 84 records of Groves re-routing payments to her own accounts between July 2017 and September 2023. The total sum defrauded was £603,272.62 - however, the firm believes the true amount could be as high as £1,637,473.90.
Prosecutor Matthew Lawson told the court that Groves, who lives in Southampton, was employed as an accountant between 2007 to 2023. Mr Lawson said: "The defendant was initially employed at the Portsmouth branch from 2017 onwards, however that branch closed in 2020 with the loss of 125 jobs.
"The defendant continued to work for Nolato in a remote capacity, largely working from home."
Mr Lawson said that Groves used this flaw to 'cover her tracks for a number of years'.
The prosecutor added that while a finance manager was investigating the financial problem, Groves continued to defraud the company.
He said that it was 'difficult to prove' the true extent of the money lost and that the company directors were stressed by the threat of prison when the company’s finances didn’t add up.
At court, Groves pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position.
Chris Gaiger, defending, said that her client has multiple sclerosis and suffers from an alcohol addiction which the money funded, and there was no evidence she had spent the money on lavish expenses or holidays.
Sentencing Groves, Recorder Jodie Mittell said: “You had a trusted position as the accountant for the company and in 2023 it came to light that a supplier had raised an issue about a payment.
“Investigations within the company found that there were discrepancies with what the company had paid out to the suppliers and what had been received by suppliers. You had used some sort of flaw in the system to change the bank details.
“At the very least, your behaviours must have contributed to the financial difficulties that the company had. I am told that the company had to close a branch in Portsmouth which resulted in redundancies of 125, I do not find you directly caused that branch to close. There must have been some contribution by your financial behaviours."
Speaking in 2020, Portsmouth Councillor Simon Bosher said the site's closure was a 'significant loss' for the city. "This is extremely disappointing for the local economy – it’s going to have a big impact on Drayton and Farlington and the wider Portsmouth community," he said.
"There's never a good time to lose a job but to lose it either just before Christmas or just after is always going to be tough for people."