A bookkeeper who ripped off her company to the tune of £46,000 has escaped an immediate jail sentence – even though she has yet to repay a single penny.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how mum-of-three Charlotte Allsebrook worked for Hoo-based Trans Nordic.

Prosecutor John Connor told how she took £46,473 by moving money from the company to her own bank account on 115 occasions between 2017 and 2019.

He said: “She worked as a bookkeeper and was entrusted to make payments on behalf of the company.

“But she transferred the money to her personal account.”

She eventually confessed in an email to the company and later admitted her thieving to police.

The 35-year-old, of Chart Sutton, near Maidstone, has a previous conviction for theft of credit card. This was from the mother of a friend, for which she received a three-year conditional discharge in 2004.

The judge, Recorder Edmund Burge QC, said it was “serious, involving a substantial and lengthy breach of trust, involving a relatively large sum of money from a relatively small company”.

He asked the prosecution: “As far as you are aware, since her admissions (of guilt) in December 2019, has any money been paid back?”

Mr Connor replied: “Not as far as I have been made aware.”

Allsebrook pleaded guilty to the fraud by abuse of position six months ago but has only now been sentenced.

Her barrister Emin Kandola said her client, who isn’t working at present, wants to repay the money.

She said: “She is very sorry. She sent a lengthy email to her former employers and she has carried that guilt to the door of this court.”

Ms Kandola added: “She was in a dark place and has no explanation for what she did.” She was given a 22-month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work for the community.

The judge told her: “You abused the trust of your former employers over many many months. This was a very serious abuse of trust of a company which could ill afford to lose that sum of money.

“The potential impact on that company and its employees was capable of being devastating.

“But you have expressed your remorse, which I accept is genuine, and this was an unsophisticated fraud.

“At the time you were suffering from post-natal depression.”

The judge said he would suspend the jail sentence which would be “a sword hanging over your neck”.

She now faces a financial investigation under the Proceeds of Crime Act to see if the money can be recovered.

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