Pagham woman jailed for £100k fraud

A Pagham woman who stole more than £100,000 from her employer has been jailed.
Lynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in PaghamLynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in Pagham
Lynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in Pagham

Read the original story here: Pagham woman who pleaded guilty to £100k fraud took sick days while posting holiday pictures onlineLynn Boakes, 47, of Sea Lane in Pagham was hired as a book keeper at a steel company in Birdham in April 2013 and was responsible for the company's payroll.

Towards the end of 2016 she began taking regular sick days while also posting pictures of herself abroad or shopping on social media.

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Concerned, the director of the company searched for the payroll documents for the previous few years and discovered Boakes had been paying herself a higher wage than had been agreed.

Lynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in PaghamLynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in Pagham
Lynn Boakes, 47 of Sea Lane in Pagham

Since October 2014 until April 2017 she had overpaid herself by a total of £13,462.

Further investigation discovered Boakes had used her inflated pay slips to purchase a car on finance.

She had also diverted £103,450.26 worth of her employer’s funds into her personal bank account that had been disguised by using a fake company name.

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Boakes was immediately suspended from the company, the director informed Sussex Police and her work computer seized. On this computer a job reference for a job application for her husband was found.

The reference falsely stated David Boakes, 54 of Sea Lane in Pagham, had worked for the steel company for two years and had been signed by a fake employee ‘Janet Young’ – Boakes’s actual middle and maiden names.

At Hove Crown Court on Thursday August 22, Lynn was sentenced to three years in prison following her earlier guilty pleas to three counts of fraud: fraud by abuse of position, fraud by false representation and making an article for use in fraud.

David was given a two-year conditional discharge after he pleaded guilty to fraud by representation. David entered an earlier not guilty to converting criminal property, which the courts decided could lie on file.