Praise for prosecution in £2.5m fraud case
The team behind the prosecution of a woman who stole more than £2.5m to fund a lavish lifestyle has been commended by a judge.
Special Casework Lawyer John Elliott and caseworkers Caroline Mungal and Emma James were praised for their "hard and meticulous work" by Recorder Brian Argyle who jailed Sharon Bridgewater for five years for fraud.
Bridgewater, 37, covered up her criminal past to work as a £78,000-a-year finance director for Hicklin Slade & Partners, a London marketing company.
During her six years with the firm she stole more than £2 million, siphoning the money into accounts held by her and boyfriend Robert Sangster, 34.
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Bridgewater, left, from Braintree, Essex, also transferred funds to pay off the couple's various mortgages.
She resigned in 2005 to join a London radio recording company where she embezzled £55,000, either by unaccounted salary payments or unauthorised withdrawals from petty cash.
Living a 'footballers' wives' lifestyle with a taste for champagne, she bought Porsches and Ferraris for herself and Sangster and spent more than £120,000 on luxury holidays.
Along with a converted barn worth £650,000 and a villa in Spain, the couple invested in seven buy-to-let properties in Essex.
For their own home, she paid £120,000 for an entertainment system and £110,000 on a new kitchen, which was featured in a glossy magazines list of top 25 kitchens in the UK.
Bridgewater pleaded guilty to 21 offences of theft, false accounting and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Sangster was convicted of perverting the course of justice and received a nine month sentence, suspended for 18 months.
At a confiscation hearing at Southwark Crown Court in April Recorder Argyle ordered Bridgewater to pay back £312,000 or face a further three-and-a-half years in jail. She is still liable for the £2.5m she stole.
For reviewing lawyer John Elliott, seconded to the Complex Casework Centre, the case was challenging to present and manage because the defendant was "a nightmare".
He said: "Not only did we have to deal with the criminal aspect, including offending on bail and last minute attempts to avoid trial on grounds of ill health, but we also dealt with restraint.
"This included the hiding of assets and almost daily demands for additional expenditure."
John reviewed the case and obtained restraint orders before charge, instructed counsel, applied for the admission of bad character evidence and handled the confiscation hearing.
"Bridgewater was one of those incorrigibly dishonest people who are incapable of admitting to themselves, let alone anyone else, that they may have committed a crime," he said.