Monday 4th August, 2014

An accountant who was working for the shoe and handbag firm Moda, has been jailed for three and a half years after being found guilty of a £200,000 theft from the company.

Dale Ballance was in charge of the finances at Moda where she had been working since 2008, increasing her salary from 40,000 to £50,000 while she was there.

Her fraudulant activity was only discovered after she had left, having been refused a further pay increase. Leeds Crown Court heard that Ballance had been making considerable cheque payments to herself between May 2009 and March 2011.

During this time Ballance spent the money on a lavish wedding, which included a ring-bearing owl, and bought a share in a racehorse.

At her trial, Ballance insisted that the money was part of a ‘secret bonus system’ which had been set up by her employers. This theory was discounted by the jury who found her guilty on three counts of fraud.

The judge in the case told Ballance: ‘This was systematic and persistent removal of a considerable amount of money. You were in a position of trust.

'Instead of repaying that trust with loyalty you manipulated the accounting ledgers in order to cover up your stealing. You did that by posting false entries in the ledgers so that the thefts could not be discovered after you left. Even when you were discovered, you lied to the other directors when they sought to meet to resolve the matters.’