Northern Irish restaurants paid £24,000 into Nuneaton woman's bank account after email fraud

[dutchman]

More than £24,000 was paid into her bank account by restaurants in Northern Ireland



A Nuneaton teenager kept quiet when a fraud against two restaurants resulted in more than £24,000 being paid into her bank account.

More than £11,000 of the money was quickly taken out or spent before the bank became aware of what was going on and froze Honor-Mae Woodcock’s account.

And at Warwick Crown Court Woodcock, who was 17 at the time, of Victoria Road, Nuneaton, pleaded guilty to two charges of retaining wrongful credits.

Now 20, she was sentenced to 32 weeks in prison suspended for two years and was ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work and to pay £500 costs.

Prosecutor Russell Pyne said they were ‘slightly unusual offences under the Theft Act,’ relating to two credits of a little over £13,000 and just over £11,000 into her Nationwide account.

He pointed out that Woodcock was only 17 at the time, but the investigation ‘has taken quite some time,’ and she was only charged earlier this year.

The two losers were both restaurants in Derry in Northern Ireland who were sent emails purporting to come from one of their suppliers of frozen food.

They were informed that the email and banking details of the supplier had changed, and that the outstanding sums owed to the company should be paid into the new bank account.

Mr Pyne said: "In fact the bank account details were not those of the supplier, but the bank account details of this defendant.

"She had almost no credit in the account until the 21st of November 2018, and then dramatically had more than £24,000.

"There was then a flurry of activity involving a number of debits, including a payment of £8,000 to someone called Tom Perkins before the Nationwide became aware of what was going on, and the remainder of the account, some £13,000, was frozen."

Following an initial investigation, Woodcock was arrested in October 2019 and said a man had asked her for the use of her account, but that she had refused.

She claimed she had not been aware of any credits being paid into the account, but that when she did become aware she had tried to return the money.

But Woodcock, who had no previous convictions, made no comment when she was interviewed again earlier this year when she was charged, added Mr Pyne.

Sentencing Woodcock, Recorder Shamim Qureshi explained that he was dealing with her in line with the guidelines for money laundering.

He told her: "This was a fraud where your bank account was used by your agreement. It was one whereby payment was made into your account rather than to the real company.

"Money went into your account and went out again very quickly as well.

"But I bear in mind that at the time you were still 17, and you are now 20, and had not been in trouble before these offences, and not since then."