Woman jailed for stealing

Woman jailed for stealing more than £398,000 from Attleborough accountants
Peter Walsh

A woman who admitted stealing more than £398,000 from the accountants she worked for to fund an online gambling addiction has been jailed.

Suzan Smith, 53, appeared at Norwich Crown Court yesterday after previously pleading guilty to the theft of £398,651.26 from Graham Wuyts & Co Accountants in Attleborough.

Sentencing Smith to three years and six months in prison, Judge Peter Jacobs said: “Mr Wuyt now cannot retire. He’s 63, his wife is older; he’s an honourable man who’s trying desperately to pay off the debts, to pay back clients and retain their confidence.

“The only way he can do this is to sell off another office property he had which he had hoped would fund his retirement.”

Kevin Eastwick, prosecuting, said Smith, of Elm Close, Lakenheath, had worked at the firm since 1999 and had risen from a receptionist to Mr Wuyts’s “right hand man”.

The court heard Smith had various roles including dealing with client accounts and paying company bills. Mr Wuyt thought she was “very good at what she did” and was “relied upon” to keep it running smoothly.

Mr Eastwick said a visit by a tax office representative on July 26, 2011 prompted a closer look at the firm’s finances which revealed £65,000 was missing from the client account and £250,000 from the company account.

Police were called after Smith, who left for a meeting earlier that day, never returned. When interviewed by police, Smith accepted she had been using company money, and credit card, for several years to fund an internet gambling habit.

Declan Gallagher, mitigating, said everything advanced by the prosecution was accepted by Smith in terms of her guilty plea and asked that she be given credit for that.

He said Smith, who was sincerely remorseful and had even contemplated committing suicide, was a mother-of-one who had led a “blameless life” until her “insidious addiction” to online gambling took over.