A lettings agent has been spared jail after she fleeced landlords and her company out of up to £130,000.
Mum Joanne Barker defrauded dozens of clients at agency Barton Kendal in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, where she was secretly siphoning off cash into her own accounts. But as well as lining her own pockets, a court heard Barker also sent money into accounts belonging to her husband and her personal trainer - with whom she was having an affair.
Her crimes came to light when landlord clients began to complain they hadn't received rental payments from tenants. The firm's owners then carried out an investigation into the claims, spotting huge holes in their accounts.
Barker, 46, had been diverting tenants' rent into her personal account and created fictitious landlords whilst inventing remedial work in the scam which carried on for more than four years until she was finally rumbled in 2018. Her fraud left the family-owned agency "humiliated and embarrassed" and teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
Jo-Anne and Ian Tweedley who directed the firm were forced to "plough all our savings" in to save it from going under, Manchester Minshull Street crown court heard. The couple then sought advice from a retired detective and family friend who said there was grounds for suspicion of fraud, and went to the police, the MEN reports.
When details of the missing cash began to emerge, Barker resigned and, the court was told, around this time she was having an 'affair' with her personal trainer, Andrew Taylor, who she used as part of her fraud. Barker used some of the stolen cash to refurbish her home in Rochdale, the court heard, including installing a new central heating system.
Investigators later found a 'false invoice' suggesting the work, costing £3,640, was carried out at the firm's Middleton branch even though it doesn't have central heating, the court was told. Meanwhile, she falsely told one landlord waiting on rent from tenants that she had cancer, which explained the delay.
Six deposits amounting to £5,357 were paid into Barker's account and a further 18 payments totalling £8,586 went to Mr Taylor's account, according to the Crown. Ian Tweedley told the court he and his partner had worked extremely hard to build up their business and thought life "was rosy" until it all came "crashing down". Barker had become a "valued and trusted family friend", he said in a victim impact statement, and that he "felt assured that she'd run the business in my absence".
"My heart sunk as I realised my business was in tatters and there wasn't enough money to pay the landlords their rents," he said. "At 6am the same morning, my sister rang to inform me that my nephew had been involved in a tragic car accident and lost his life - I was numb, I had hit rock bottom and my sister and her family needed my support at a truly horrendous point In our lives.
"What followed was two years of stress, panic, exhaustion, to the point of nearly having a breakdown." He went on that he 'felt humiliated, embarrassed' and was 'as low and desperate as I'd ever been'. The couple had to take out a £50,000 to pay off contractors.
The judge told Barker: "You were one of those who were part and parcel of the structure of the company and were quite clearly trusted to the highest level. This is a significant breach of that trust.... There's no excuse for the systematic theft and stripping of assets of the company... effectively bringing the company to the bring of potential bankruptcy. You have betrayed individuals who have more than an employer-employee relationship with you who trusted you to run that business on your own as they hoped you would."
Barker, now of Waterman Walk in Salford Quays, was handed a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years after she had admitted one charge of fraud by false representation. She was also ordered to carry out 30 days of rehabilitation activity and 180 hours of unpaid work. She was also placed on a curfew which requires her to be at home between 7pm and 7am for the next two months.