Woman took £130k from employer. Then she got a new job and did it again

A CROOKED finance manager stole £140,000 from her employer years after being jailed for leaving another employer out of pocket.

- JASON EVANS

Victoria King was already on a £45,000-a-year salary but paid herself an extra £7,500 a month by fiddling the books and creating payments to what looked to be a genuine supplier but was in fact herself. The 56-year-old defendant has never revealed what she did with the money.

Merthyr Crown Court heard that King - who is also known as Vikki Phillips - was jailed in 2014 for stealing £130,000 from a charity she was working for and went on to forge “glowing” references from her victims which she used to apply for another job in finance.

The court heard she is currently working in finance for another company, though it was not clear whether her current employer knew she was in the dock.

Leah Pollard, prosecuting, said King joined the Rhigos office of Eftech Ltd, a company which supplies adhesives and sealants to the automotive industry, as finance manager in July 2021.

She said in that £45,000-a-year role the defendant was responsible for making payments to the firm's suppliers and had access to the company’s Lloyds bank account.

The court heard that in April 2023 the defendant quit her job and the Belgian-based company decided not to replace her but to subsume the Welsh office's finance operations into the Belgian operations.

As part of the transition process a financial review was carried out which involved checking invoices and payments at the Rhigos office.