Bingo addict stole £62,000 from workplace to fund online habit

By [gstamford]

A woman stole £62,000 from a petrol station to fund her online gambling habit.

Sandra Preston, 42, stole the money from the Total garage and shop in Middle Street South, Driffield, where she was manageress.

Preston used a payment system installed at the garage to fraudulently transfer money to the Mecca Bingo and Foxy Bingo websites when she became addicted.

She stole £62,722 from her employer Eling Ltd, which owned the garage, over a two-month period last year.

Preston, of Highfield Avenue, Driffield, was jailed for six months at Hull Crown Court yesterday, after admitting the fraud at a previous hearing.

The court heard started gambling after her marriage failed and she moved in with a friend.

The friend's mother played bingo online and Preston was encouraged to sign up to an online bingo site.

She then began gambling online and her debts spiralled out of control.

Her barrister, Anil Murray, told the court: "Initially, she paid for her bingo activities herself. She then lost so much she began to get into debt playing on her own credit cards.

"It is an activity in which one can lose money and lose it fast. It became an addiction."

Between August 16 and October 19 last year, she used Paypoint – a system customers can use to pay bills and other accounts through various stores – to transfer money to online bingo accounts.

She would then gamble the cash and the account would either be debited or credited, depending on whether she won or lost.

The deception was discovered when the garage owner came to sell the business in October last year.

When the accounts were drawn up to show to the prospective buyer, the shortfall was noticed.

Sentencing Preston, Recorder Anton Lodge QC said: "You were a woman of good character and a woman of honour.

"You had led a commendable, ordinary, honest good life and the sad thing is that, when you got this job at this garage, you discovered a way to steal money from your employer."