A Zimbabwean accountant has been jailed for 12 years for fraud in the UK.
Evelyn Gore-Strachan, (41) stole £1,8 million over several years. She was jailed at Reading Crown Court. She had pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud by abuse of position at the same court on January 26.
Gore-Strachan admitted carrying out four counts of fraud against Webtech Wireless and five against a company called Britannia Pharmaceuticals. She was charged with the offences in November last year. Between April 1, 2008, and December 31, 2012, while working as an accountant for Webtech Wireless, she defrauded the company of around £809,000 in total.
She did it by raising fraudulent invoices amounting to £130,983 payable to her own bank accounts. She also made fictitious VAT penalty notices worth £91,536 and diverted payments worth £370,737 due to HMRC in respect of VAT and PAYE to her
own accounts.
Gore-Strachan also diverted royalty payments worth £216,520 intended to be paid to a company called Globetrac to her own account. She later became a financial director of Britannia Pharmaceuticals and, between March 1, 2013, and June 30, 2015, she defrauded the company of a total of £1,000,614.
She diverted rental payments worth £189,563 due to Britannia Pharmaceuticals to bank accounts in her own name and made payments from the company worth £312,379 to bank accounts using false non-existent or genuine invoices.
She was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for the four offences relating to Webtech and six years’ imprisonment to run consecutively for the five offences relating to Britannia Pharmaceuticals. Investigating officer, Detective Constable Stephanie Burleigh of Thames Valley Police economic crime unit, said: “This investigation uncovered deceit and fraud on a grand scale against two local employers.
“Evelyn Gore-Strachan betrayed the trust placed in her and abused her position to enrich herself and her associates.
“This has been a long and complex investigation and I trust that the conviction and sentence passed not only reassures our communities but also sends a message out that crime will not pay in the Thames Valley.” getreading
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