Cancer patient who stole £400,000 from her employers thinking she’d be dead before they found out is jailed for four years

Shirley Player, 61, stole £57,000 a year from 2007 to 2014

A cancer sufferer who stole £400,000 from her employers thinking she would be dead before her crimes were discovered has been jailed for four years after she was told she had the all-clear.

Shirley Player, 61, stole £57,000 a year from 2007 to 2014 from the estate agents she worked for in Bournemouth, after being diagnosed with the disease.

 

The accounts manager claims she stole the money because her two sisters had previously died from breast cancer.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard she had thought she would 'not be here' when her employers uncovered what she had been doing.

But after responding well to treatment the grandmother was given the all clear. 

Then, after her employers carried out an audit, the sheer extent of her theft finally came to light.

They discovered Player had transferred a total of £390,550 into her personal bank accounts over seven years, concealing the payments as tenant deposit returns.

She made 390 transactions into four accounts then covered up the payments by editing the company's accounts system to make them look legitimate.

Carolyn Branford-Wood, prosecuting, said Player, from Bournemouth, Dorset, blew the money on paying off debts, paying rents and on 'family treats', and had no idea of how much money she had stolen.

She said: 'She had thought she might have died before the thefts were discovered. She lost both her sisters to cancer in the mid-2000s and she had then been diagnosed but responded favourably to treatment.

'She had not expected to still be here.'

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how, in a police interview, Player confessed to her crimes immediately.

Mrs Brandford-Wood said Player told officers: 'I can't deny it - I did it. In my head I still don't know why I have done it. It was me and nobody else.

'It started because I had debts and then I thought 'I'm getting away with it' and it just escalated.

'In the end I could not stop.'

The prosecutor said: 'Asked where the money had gone she said it was on bills, rent and treats for the family.

Daily Mail