A woman who swindled a quarter of a million pounds from her employers lied repeatedly as she desperately tried to avoid being brought to justice.
Angela Boote was jailed for three years and four months earlier this week after stealing a total of £255,854 through her role at Liverpool insurance brokers Griffiths and Armour. The 52-year-old was a trusted and well liked employee and had worked for the company since 1994.
Yet over the course of a number of years the mum, who lived in Fazakerley, redirected cash intended for clients to bank accounts linked to herself and her family members. Liverpool Crown Court heard earlier this week how Boote spent the cash to fund a “lavish lifestyle” of expensive holidays, clothes and jewellery.
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Photos on her social media accounts, which are no longer public, show herself, her husband and their daughters in far flung destinations like Aruba in the Caribbean during the three year period she was stealing money. Sarah Griffin, prosecuting, also detailed to the court how Boote took extensive steps to cover her tracks - and continued to try to con her colleagues when they started to uncover her deceit.
Suspicions were first raised in September 2020 when Boote was away on holiday. A client complained to the company that a £224 refund that they were due to receive had not entered their account.
Boote’s manager began to investigate the complaint, finding the bank details on the payment did not match those provided by the client. She contacted HSBC, the bank through which the transfer was conducted, to find out who the account belonged to and copied Boote into the email.
At this point, Boote returned from leave and contacted HSBC numerous times herself, saying the issue had been resolved. At every turn, she tried to cut her manager out of the exchange, not copying her in to the emails.
At one point, she even replied to HSBC and tried to make it look like her manager was copied in - but with her email address spelled incorrectly. Boote’s manager continued to question what had happened to the money and Boote finally admitted that she had sent into her daughter’s account.
Yet even then Boote continued to lie, using the explanation that she must have incorrectly entered her daughter’s details because they were written down on a piece of paper next to her and she had planned to send her money from her personal account. At this stage, Boote’s manager reported the issue as a major error and an investigation of Boote’s accounts began.
Eventually, 96 fraudulent payments were discovered and Boote was sacked shortly after. Recorder David Knifton QC said Boote’s criminality was characterised from the start by complex attempts to cover up her dishonesty, with false paper trails created to hide her tracks.
The court heard Boote had paid back around £85,000 from inheritance received from an aunt and was being pursued for more cash through civil courts. Lionel Greig, defending, said Boote knew she had let herself and her family down and deeply regretted her actions.
She will serve 20 months of her sentence in prison before being eligible for release under licence.
