Fraudulent Accountant Sentenced To Four Years In Prison

Fri, 18 Sep 2009

A former finance director has been jailed after admitting to stealing over half a million pounds from his employer to fund his wife’s extravagant lifestyle.

Andrew Wetherall, ex director at Big Four accounting firm KPMG, was sentenced to four years in prison at Southwark Crown Court after he owned up to false accounting and fraudulently claiming more than £500,000 in expenses between September 2002 and January 2007.

Wetherall, from Hertfordshire, obtained most of the money by billing KPMG for flights that he had never taken. His fraudulent claims were kept below £5,000, which meant they did not require further authorisation and went undetected until an internal investigation was carried out.

The 49-year-old had previously told police how he stole the money for his wife because "he did not want her lifestyle to suffer", fearing she would leave him if it did.

But despite pleading guilty to the charges and returning most of the cash to his former employers, Judge Gregory Stone ruled that Mr Wetherall must serve time behind bars.

She said: "Clearly you have damaged a glittering career and you have also damaged the thing that you were trying to protect - your lifestyle."

In a statement made earlier this year, KPMG said it had changed its internal procedures to prevent this type of fraud from occurring again.
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