Top KPMG Accountant Confesses To Fraud

Thu, 27 Aug 2009

A KPMG director has admitted to fraudulently claiming more than £500,000 in expenses to pay for his wife's lavish lifestyle.

Southwark Crown Court heard how Andrew Weatherall defrauded his employer, KPMG, by making false expense claims of £545,620 because he feared that his wife would divorce him if he was unable to fund her £15,000 a month spending habit.

Samantha Hatt, prosecuting, said: "He felt the pressure of his current wife's financial expectations which were in the sum of £15,000 a month. He didn't want her lifestyle to suffer so he turned to crime to ensure that it didn't."

An internal investigation was launched by KPMG after colleagues became suspicions of Mr Wetherall’s claims .

The case was then passed on to the police and the 49-year-old was taken to court, where he pleaded guilty to false accounting and fraud .

He is also expected to face a prison sentence, despite returning £337,228 to his old employers.

KPMG said in a statement that it had changed its internal procedures to prevent such a fraud being committed again.

The Big 4 accountancy firm said: "Mr Wetherall’s frauds were detected via our own internal checks and he was dismissed in 2008. A thorough internal investigation was carried out and the case was then handed over to the police."

"Since this case, KPMG has made changes to its internal expenses procedures to prevent fraud of the type committed by Mr Wetherall being perpetrated today. No client funds were involved."
add to favouritesnewsletterlink to this pagesend to friendpost comments

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.