Merseyside police worker 'swindled £23,000'

Oct 17 2007 By Sarah Chapman, Liverpool Daily Post

A FORMER Merseyside police worker swindled the force out of more than £23,000 because she felt under pressure at work, a court heard.

Christine Nettleton, 36, fiddled her expenses and overtime claims over a three-year period and spent the cash on gifts for relatives, Liverpool crown court heard.

Pregnant Nettleton worked as a senior administrative clerk at the force headquarters in Canning Place within the operational planning department.

Joseph Boyd, prosecuting, told the court Nettleton was responsible for checking and signing claims forms for other members of staff, which would then be signed by her line manager.

He said Nettleton would not have had the opportunity within her job to complete much overtime and to earn expenses on top of her £20,000-a-year salary.

She had forged the signature of her line manager to top her up wages by £8,711 in false expenses and £14,362 in overtime between September 2003 and August last year.

Nettleton, of south Liverpool, pleaded guilty to 38 charges of obtaining property by deception.

The court heard she had no previous convictions and a further seven similar charges were ordered to lie on the file.

Andrew Ford, defending, told the court she had been working in a male-dominated environment and felt under pressure as she was called ‘dippy’ by her colleagues and this had a severe affect on her self-esteem.

The court heard the department she worked in had expanded and she had taken on more work, which was not part of her job description.

When her deception was uncovered during an audit, she resigned from her post.

Mr Ford said: "She was relieved that these matters had come to an end.

"This woman is profoundly sorry of what she has done.

"She wishes to publicly apologise to her former employers and those in her former employ whose trust she has betrayed."

He said Nettleton, now a cleaner, used the money to go shopping and bought presents for relatives as a form of therapy to try and boost her self-esteem.

He said she suffered from depression and had tried to kill herself twice and was £36,000 in debt.

Judge Graham Morrow QC sentenced her to 10 month’s imprisonment, suspended for two years. During that period she will be supervised by the Probation Service and will have to obey a nightly curfew between 8pm and 7am for three months.

The judge also made a confiscation order of £2,815 of the proceeds of her crimes and this will be taken from her pension fund, the court heard.