Secretary spared jail over fraud

A City secretary has escaped a jail sentence after admitting stealing more almost £18,000 from an investment bank.

Nicola Fielding, 26, paid for trips abroad using thousands of euros in petty cash brought back by executives from business trips.

She wept as she was given a 51-week suspended sentence at the Old Bailey and branded a "disgrace" by the judge.

The 26-year-old from Shepherds Bush, west London, admitted stealing from JP Morgan between May 2006 and April 2007.

She was put in charge of expense claims for the Italian sales team and providing petty cash for their trips abroad, when executives would be given 500 euros for taxis, gifts and other expenses.

'Family disgrace'

"When euros were returned to her, rather than putting them back she had taken them herself to a bureau de change in Oxford Circus and approximately twice a month put the money into her own account," said John Hulme, prosecuting.

Fielding used the cash to pay for a string of holidays with her boyfriend in Turkey, New York, the Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland, over a nine-month period.

Her employers became concerned about 'certain anomalies' and when she was arrested she immediately confessed to the fraud.

In court, she was ordered to complete one hundred hours of unpaid work, as well as pay back £2,500 of the money she took.

Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London, said that while the amount to be paid weekly may seem like a token, it would remind her of "the disgrace you have brought upon yourself and your family".