Chorley bride who stole £200K to fund lavish wedding is jailed (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Chorley bride who stole £200K to fund lavish wedding is jailed

2:09pm Wednesday 20th June 2012 in Chorley

A CHORLEY woman who scammed over £200,000 from her employer to fund a lavish wedding has been jailed for 20 months.

Kirsty Lane, 29, of Lewis Close, Adlington had previously pleaded guilty to ten counts of fraud by abuse of position at Leyland Magistrates’ Court.

She also had a further 112 offences taken into consideration.

She worked as an £15,000 a year accounts assistant at Pure AV Limited in Leyland, which installs audio-visual equipment, where she abused the systems by inputting fake invoices, marking them as paid and then transferring the money into her own account.

Almost £125,000 was transferred into her bank account and to suppliers directly and around £75,000 was diverted through her husband’s bank account, which she told him were savings, salary and bonuses. A large proportion of this money was used to fund a lavish wedding.

Earlier this year, her husband, Graham Lane, 36, also of Lewis Close, Adlington was found not guilty to one count of money laundering.

In addition the money was used to pay for items including a jewel encrusted iPhone covers costing £1,500, compact mirrors covered in Swarovski crystals, car keys covered in Swarovski crystals and wedding flowers.

The event at the mock-Great Hall at Mains, near Blackpool, reportedly cost around £40,000 with lavish catering and a free bar.

She was handed the prison sentence at Preston Crown Court today.

DC Will Hogan, of Leyland CID, said: “Kirsty Lane abused her position of trust to steal from her employer and fund a lavish lifestyle.

“The consequences of her greedy and appalling behaviour have had a massive impact on this small company, which has been adversely affected by the loss of this huge sum of money.

“We take fraud extremely seriously and we are committed to thoroughly investigating any reports that we receive.”

Lane started working for Pure AV Limited in May 2007 and started siphoning money into her account in December 2008.

The offences continued until she left the company for her wedding which took place on 23 January 2011.