Jail for woman who used company accounts to fund month-long spending spree

A finance co-ordinator who used client credit cards details to pay for a month-long spending spree for her and two friends has been jailed at Southwark Crown Court.

More than £25,000 was taken from customer accounts. Bianca Joseph, 26, from West London received a 12-month sentence for the offences committed while working at a global corporation.

In Autumn 2009 Joseph underwent cosmetic surgery at a leading medical clinic, paid for from company accounts she had been tasked to manage.

The mother-of-two also bought a £12,000 car and attempted to purchase £20,000 worth of furniture and drink.

Joseph later passed her client’s credit card details on to sisters Rishona and Ramona Downes, who splashed out more than £4,000 each on their own cosmetic surgery.

Joseph’s crimes were uncovered when American Express’s internal security noticed the irregular transactions on one of her company accounts.

The information was passed on to the City of London Police, and shortly afterwards detectives arrested Joseph at her home and seized evidence linking her to the fraudulent spending.

Joseph pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and one of conspiracy to defraud. In April the Downes sisters were handed 12-month community orders after being found guilty of five counts of fraud.

DC Alex Nimako, from City of London Police, said:

"The money may have been spent on something unusual but the circumstances in the case of Bianca Joseph are very familiar. An abuse of a position of trust sees short-term pleasure being exchanged for longer-term pain.

“Committing a crime at work may seem easy at the start, both in what you do and how you cover your tracks. But anyone thinking of following Joseph’s example should expect to suffer a similar fate - caught by her employer, prosecuted by the police and spending time behind bars."