British courts have sentenced an accountant to 12 years’ prison time after she defrauded her former Metro Vancouver employer out of £809,000 (C$1.48 million).
Evelyn Gore-Strachan was sentenced Friday (April 22) after pleading guilty in January to four counts of fraud against Burnaby’s Webtech Wireless (TSX:WEW).
The 41-year-old Brit had been working at Webtech’s U.K. office in 2009 when she began diverting both legitimate tax payments and payments on doctored tax invoices into a fraudulent bank account.
Smaller amounts were then sent to U.K. tax authorities along with falsified reports.
The U.K. office closed in 2012 and auditors at Webtech only discovered the discrepancies as they were settling up accounts.
“For me personally, I am gratified that [the court] acted in such a strong manner,” former Webtech Wireless CEO Scott Edmonds told Business In Vancouver.
“Evelyn, the perpetrator, has been proven to be a serial criminal and her crimes caused not just financial loss, but also tarnished the reputations of people who had no connection to her actions as well as many hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate and document.”
An internal investigation at Webtech pegged the fraud at $800,000 in 2014 but the Thames Valley Police economic crime unit concluded Gore-Strachan defrauded the company of nearly twice that amount.
Gore-Strachan also pleaded guilty in January to five counts of fraud totalling £1 million (C$1.84 million) against her next employer, Britannia Pharmaceuticals.
She was sentenced to six years’ prison for the offences related to Webtech and another six years’ prison for the offences related to Britannia Pharmaceuticals.
“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,” investigating office Det. Const. Stephanie Burleigh said in a statement.
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