Casino addict clerk jailed for law firm scam

Casino addict clerk jailed for £20k law firm scam
Chris Osuh

An accounts clerk swindled £20,000 from clients of the top commercial law firm where he worked after blowing his wages gambling in casinos.

James Hollingworth began diverting cash from customer accounts at Cobbetts, in the city centre, after coming under pressure from the ‘backstreet loan sharks’ who fed his gambling habit.

The 32-year-old, of Northgate Chambers, Liverpool Road, Castlefield, pocketed clients’ cash and produced false documents to cover his tracks.

By targeting the ‘dormant’ accounts of customers who had given the company money for business deals and not yet claimed it back, Hollingworth avoided detection for months.

His actions could lead to a potential loss of confidence in the company, David Bruce, prosecuting, told the court.

Hollingworth’s crimes were exposed by an audit carried out after he resigned from the firm after a disciplinary matter in April.

Now he has been jailed for 15 months after admitting defrauding £20,626 between January and April at Manchester Crown Court.

Keith Harrison, defending, said that his client’s life had ‘fallen into the abyss’ when he began defrauding his employer, claiming he was not a ‘callous, hardened criminal’ who had enjoyed a life of luxury from the proceeds of his crimes.

"His life has been badly affected by divorce and the gambling addiction to which he fell prey," Mr Harrison said.

"He would go to casinos; he fell in with some unsavoury types.

"He was subsidised in his gambling by being given chips and soon he fell into debt.

"Then, he was subject to significant threat to his own person and he was also concerned as to whether this might spill over to his family."

The court was told that Hollingworth has personal debts of £18,000, and was unlikely to ever be employed in a ‘position of trust’ involving money again.

Sentencing, Judge Andrew Blake said that Hollingworth had got into debt through his own actions.

He told him: "You are well educated, you had advantages that other people who have stood in that dock have not had."

Describing the breach of trust as ‘quite considerable’, the judge told him: "You had lost your job for other, quite different, reasons when it came to light.

"Had that not happened, no doubt it would still be going on today because your gambling would have meant you were deeper and deeper in debt."