PA jailed for £300,000 fraud from company account

A PA at a multi-million pound property company has been jailed after admitting stealing more than £23,000 from her Hampstead boss and defrauding his firm out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Angela Heim, 52, was a secretary at Hillersdon Estates and Investments Ltd working for managing director Douglas John Green, of Windmill Hill.

Heim, of Leith Close, Kingsbury, was accused of transferring £300,000 from the company business accounts and into her own personal account over five years.

She was also accused of stealing a total of £23,257.40 from Mr Green between March 20 and July 16 last year.

It was alleged that she used bank cards to withdraw the money from cashpoint machines around her home in Brent between March 20 and July 16 2014.

A judge at Blackfriars Crown Court, sitting at a Newton Hearing to establish the facts on October 26, heard how the PA, who had worked for the company for 13 years, was entrusted with bank cards and making payments.

During five years between March 1 2009 and August 2014 the prosecution said she transferred money into her personal account and made up false entries in the company books to account for the missing money.

She was accused of “abusing her position as personal assistant in which she was expected to safeguard and not act against Mr Green’s financial interests.”

Heim, who resigned from Hillersdon in August last year, pleaded guilty to both charges during the hearing and was jailed for a total of three years for each offence to run concurrently.