Serial fraudster gets suspended sentence

A serial fraudster who lied to her bank and her employers to obtain thousands of pounds on credit has escaped an immediate prison sentence.

A judge said mother-to-be Tina Patel would never have obtained credit and debit cards from the HSBC bank or got her job with a temping agency if she had told the truth about her fraudulent past. When making an application at the bank's Willenhall branch, Patel, of York Road, Willenhall, claimed she lived at the non-existent address of 79 Ampleforth Drive.

The 32-year-old repeated the lie, which enabled her to get debit and credit cards from HSBC, when she went to the Tipton and Coseley Building Society branch in Willenhall.

She also showed the society a forged salary slip claiming she was paid was £24,000 instead of £14,500.

In February 2006 Patel transferred £1,900 from her bank credit account into a current account and withdrew £3,250 at the Willenhall branch, said Salma Bahia, prosecuting.

A few days later, another withdrawal took her over her £500 overdraft limit and the next time she called in at the branch, on February 23, staff contacted the police. It was then revealed six previous applications to open bank accounts had been refused.

She was taken on the books of Reed Accounting and, in June 2007, by Accentuate Human Resources after lying on forms that she had no criminal convictions.

She had a record of 30 offences dating back to July 2004 and had been given prison terms totalling 15 months. The latest offences were committed while she was out on licence.

Patel, who is four months pregnant with her first child, pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud and two counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage.

But Judge Benjamin Nicholls told her: "You don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of what you do. You don't realise your financial management is unethical and you attempt to minimise your behaviour."

She was sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for two years, and an 18-month supervision order.