Mum-of-two who swindled £130,000k from her employers spared prison after blaming PMT
The 45-year-old admitted theft and false accounting but also blamed depression and alcohol
A WOMAN who swindled £130,000 was spared prison after blaming PMT.
Caroline Geoghegan, 45, stole the money from her employers over a two-year period.
But the secretary was rumbled by chance when a colleague queried a payment while she was on holiday, a court was told.
The mum of two was working at accountants Plummer Parsons for ten years when she started stealing petty cash in June 2015.
She went on to make out cheques to herself, stealing a total of £133,698 before a rogue payment was discovered in August 2017.
Geoghegan, of Seaford, East Sussex, admitted theft and false accounting at Hove crown court. Rosalind Crook, defending, said she had been struggling with pre-menstrual tension at the time.
She said: “She accepts she has a problem with depression and PMT and alcohol, at times drinking a bottle of wine a day.”
Her dad also died suddenly of liver cancer early in 2015, and Mrs Crook added: “Apparently the death of her father started this and there can be a link between death and stealing.”
Recorder Joshua Swirsky was told she paid £108,000 back after her elderly mother remortgaged her home.
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He gave her two years’ jail, suspended for two years.
After the hearing, Geoghegan said: “My dad died and I went off the rails.” Then speaking about the company, based in Eastbourne, she said: “Of course I want to apologise to them.
“I don’t suppose any amount of apologising will make up for what I’ve done.”