© Derbyshire Police Karen Brailsford took £1.4m from the firm that employed her and blew the lot

A mum who stole more than £1.6m million pounds from her Derbyshire employer will have to sell her house, Mercedes car, personalised number plate, and designer goods to help pay back just a fraction of what she took.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Derby Crown Court found that gambling addict Karen Brailsford benefited to the tune of an astonishing £1,653,672, taking the money from Derbyshire firm Urban Design and Development Ltd where she worked for a number of years.

But after what a judge called “a lot of hard work from a number of different parties,” financial investigators at Derbyshire police have discovered that the 53-year-old has just £130,314.59 to her name which will come from the sale of the items she still owns.

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Judge Shaun Smith KC told the defendant, who appeared over a video-link from prison: “Unless someone finds you have some more money like in another country this is the end of the process and you will have to sell those items to fund it.”

The Proceeds of Crime Act (or POCA) allows the police to apply for cash to be seized from criminals who have made their money from ill-gotten gains. It is typically used after drug dealers have been sentenced and can see criminals forced to sell properties, cars or jewellery that belong to them to pay the cash back.

Usually, the money that is seized is split 50-50 between the police and the Government and is often used to fund community projects. But in this case, the judge ordered the £130,000 be paid as compensation to her Clay Cross-based former employer. Importantly, if a convicted criminal comes into money later in life that he or she does not currently have, police can still apply to have that seized.

At her sentencing hearing last year, it was told how Brailsford falsified invoices, in part to fund her gambling impulses.

At its peak, she took £300,000 from the company in one year, and she had already taken £29,000 in 2021 before being caught that February. The court heard how her actions only came to light due to her desperation for money when she took funds in such an “obvious” way on one Friday afternoon, which led to her employer discovering her fraudulent activity.

Phillip Plant, prosecuting, said the defendant was spoken to by the company’s directors about the incident and Brailsford claimed her actions were an error. The directors were unsatisfied with her response, and Brailsford then confessed to what she had been doing, and that she had been stealing from them “for some time”.

The defendant, who was firstly employed on a salary of £21,000, pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud by abuse of position telling the police that she was desperate for the money, which was why she did it in such an obvious way.

Police found that Brailsford had spent £298,867.36 on gambling, she had also sent some of the money to her children, and bought two holiday caravans. In a statement from the company’s managing director, Mr Dawson, the court heard how both he and the business had been impacted by Brailsford’s actions, noting that not only did he think that the business had lost out financially, but also that he had struggled to keep his work and home life separate because of the incident.

Nicola Hornby, defending, noted that Brailsford has “nothing to show for it…this is not a case where there are substantial assets able to be identified”. She also noted that Brailsford had made admissions when she was charged, has been suffering from depression, for which she takes medication, and that her imprisonment would have an impact on her children and elderly father.

Sentencing Brailsford, Recorder Tim Spruce said that her methods “were not unsophisticated” and the reality was that Brailsford had access to key financial control. Addressing Brailsford, he said: “You gave thought and planning into ways in which the fraud would go undetected.”

However, he did note that Brailsford, of Whitehall Road, Rotherham, “made admissions at an early opportunity” and had “expressed clear remorse for what has happened”. She was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison.

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