A fraudulent accountant took £280,000 from three companies she was working for, bankrupting one of them and leaving 28 people unemployed. Joanne Hughes, who runs her own accountancy firm, preyed on the vulnerability of the company owners who had little knowledge of accounts and repeatedly kept money owed to the then HMRC for herself.
The deceitful 48-year-old from Porthcawl, Bridgend, eventually pleaded guilty to charges of fraud against TRIO Construction, TRIO Mechanical and RJ Site Spray four days into a trial in May, Cardiff Crown Court heard on Friday. The extent of the financial loss to the companies was so great that the defendant cannot repay the full amount, agreeing to pay £130,098.35 following the sale of her caravan and other valuable assets she purchased with the dirty money.
Hughes reassured all three south Wales-based companies that the payments were being sent to HMRC during the period of offending between 2014 and 2018, when in fact she was only declaring a small portion of the turnover and paying the remaining larger sums into her bank account. It was only in 2019 when another accountant notified one of the businesses about their “awful” accounts that an investigation started. HMRC though had already grown suspicious, the court heard.
