MoD clerk faces jail for stealing nearly £1m in expenses fraud

A former Ministry of Defence clerk is facing a prison term for fraud and money laundering after stealing nearly £1m by entering fake expenses claims into the department's online administrative system.

- Aneesa Ahmed

Southwark crown court heard yesterday that the former corporal Aaron Stelmach-Purdie, 34, ran the scam for more than a year between November 2014 and January 2016 while he worked in central London as a clerk at the MoD's administrative headquarters.

Stelmach-Purdie, from Oldham in Lancashire, manipulated the department's online platform for the management of staff's expenses and allowance claims. He defrauded the government out of £911,678, keeping £557,093 for himself, the court was told.

The defendant, who was dismissed from the armed forces in January 2016 after he was convicted and sentenced over four counts of sexual activity with a child, used his joint personal administration (JPA) account - an administrative system used by the armed forces to pay salaries and process expenses - to make fraudulent claims.