Fraudster Hartlepool business finance director ordered to pay £78,000 compensation

A woman who stole more than £100,000 from the Hartlepool business where she worked has been ordered to pay back more than £70,000.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Lisa McGrath, 43, was a finance director for Technical Ex Services, on the town’s Queens Meadow Business Park, but treated it as her personal bank for five years, Teesside Crown Court previously heard.

She raided its accounts and spent the money on family holidays, clothes, shoes and taxis to a golf club.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A police financial investigator found that McGrath, who had also been a former Cleveland Police officer, had carried out 81 frauds.

The hearing took place at Teesside Crown Court.The hearing took place at Teesside Crown Court.
The hearing took place at Teesside Crown Court.

They including paying for a family holiday in Tenerife, weekends away and a new bathroom suite.

The fraud was described as persistent, hidden and maintained in part by her manipulation of the company’s accounting records.

An office cleaner found her stuffing black bags with shredded paper and in tears after her employer asked to see the accounts.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

McGrath pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of trust between February 2012 and July 2018 but avoided an immediate jail term when she was sentenced last November.

Instead she received a two-year suspended prison sentence, unpaid work and a tagged curfew.

McGrath, of Ancorage Mews, Thornaby, returned to court on Friday, June 10, for a Proceeds Of Crime Application hearing.

It was agreed that she benefited by £113,475.

Judge Christopher Smith made a compensation order for £78,034.62 that was available from the sale of a house.

The court heard the police already have it.

But Judge Smith told her that she would owe the outstanding amount of around £35,000 for the rest of her life.