Nurse kept £16,000 in council credit con

A nursing student who had more than £16,000 wrongly paid into her bank account by Walsall Council has been found guilty of dishonestly keeping the cash, which disappeared in just two days.

It took just an hour for a jury of nine men and three women to convict Ifeikuwa Ifonlaja of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit.

The money was paid into the 22-year-old's bank account after the council was sent a fraudulent fax pretending to be from Lonsdale Midlands Ltd – a company providing staff and services to care homes in Walsall.

The two-day trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court was told the fax instructed the authority that future payments should be made to a new bank account – later found to be the Nigerian's.

Council records were changed after staff contacted a man allegedly from the firm by phoning the number on the fax and £16,076.01 was credited to the former care assistant's Lloyds TSB account on May 4, 2010.

The truth was discovered after a further payment for more than £20,000 was rejected and the firm was contacted using the telephone number on an old invoice.

The bank account was traced to Ifonlaja, of Seymour Avenue, Tottenham, but the cash had disappeared within two days.

A £300 cash machine withdrawal was made and £1,627 was transferred to another account in Ifonlaja's name, which she denied setting up.

Ifonlaja's driving licence, which she claimed to have lost, had been used to withdraw £1,380 over the bank counter, and the rest was paid to Kanoo – a foreign exchange company.

Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting, said the photograph on the driving licence would have identified Ifonlaja even though the University of Northampton nursing and mental health student denied withdrawing the cash.

Ifonlaja, who was arrested on June 17 last year, said she had stopped using her Lloyds TSB account in September 2009, but withdrawals continued to be made afterwards.

Summing up the case, Recorder Andrew Hatton said: "The prosecution didn't say she was the principle fraudster but one who was willing to lend her bank account to a criminal enterprise."

Ifonlaja was unconditionally bailed until sentencing at Derby Crown Court on September 2.