A thieving bingo addict wife is jailed
28th May, 2008
Susanne Orton, 63, was working as a conveyancing assistant in the firm which her husband was a senior partner at. She stole nearly a total of £80,000 to feed her fruit machine addiction, which is why she is now jailed for ten months.
Mrs Orton was spending £500 in the bingo hall every night playing slots. After she has already spent £100,000 of her family’s savings she started looking elsewhere and the next most convenient option seemed for her to be her husband's firm.
The court was told that the woman got used to gambling as a way to relieve her stress of long hours and she ended up coming to play five days of every week. Mrs Orton started blowing her family’s savings back in 2004 and spend around £30,000 of the money her and her man had saved for a deposit for a new house. They already have three buy-to-let properties and this should have been their fourth of the kind.
Here is what James Patrick, for the prosecution, revealed to court: “The £30,000 had been spent by Mrs Orton, who had gambled it away on fruit machines. She moved £30,000 from a client account into their account and she kept moving money.”
According to Patrick, the woman was only found out in her unlawful actions when the money stolen reached £79,655. The firm started investigating when the couple went on a holiday to Egypt. The company have realised there were many financial irregularities, which triggered the investigation into the affairs.
Here is what Mr Patrick said: “When they returned, Mrs Orton became aware of the investigation and as a result set up a transfer of money to another account to repay £63,000.”
Initially both Mr and Mrs Orton got arrested, but soon after the police realised that Mr Orton had nothing to do with it and released him without charge. He has repaid the stolen amount plus interest immediately, but still lost his job as a result of this. During the earlier hearing Mrs Orton admitted to four charges of theft and four charges of false accounting.
Susan Evans, in mitigation said to the court that Mrs Orton became a victim of her own addiction that started off due to the stress coming from long hours at work. She stated that Gala Bingo hall became an escapism mechanism for a woman, who couldn’t find a better way of dealing with things at the time.
Here is what Miss Evans said in court: "Such was the stress that she turned to gambling and was out up to five nights a week spending up to £500 a night. She spent £100,000 of their own money. Everything snowballed and she robbed Peter to pay Paul. Her real fear was that her husband would find out."
When pronouncing Mrs Orton’s sentence judgement, Judge Christopher Garvey Clark, QC, said this: "The offences involve so much money and took place over such a long period and involved such duplicity on your part that the court has no alternative but to pass a custodial sentence. This is a sad day for you and I'm sorry I've had to pass this sentence."
By Elena
