Wife steals £80,000 to fund gambling habit.

The wife of a solicitor has been jailed for 10 months for stealing £80,000 from her husbands law firm to fund her £500-a-night slots habit.

Suzanne Orton, 63,  a now former conveyancing assistant at the Bournmouth based law firm where her husband was a senior partner, had spent nearly £100,000 worth of family savings before taking from the company accounts.

Mrs Orton became addicted to gambling as a way of relieving work related stress and began spending the family savings in 2004. Soon she had spent £30,000 that had been set aside by the couple for a deposit on a buy-to-let property. Rather than reveal these losses to her husband she instead stole £30,000 from a client account to replenished their savings account.

This creative accountancy continued and by 2006 the law firm noticed some irregularities and began an internal investigation. Upon the couples return from a holiday in Egypt, Mrs Orton, now aware of the investigation attempted to move money from another account to repay the amount outstanding some £63,000.

Arresting habit

By the time of the couples arrest Mrs Orton had stolen £79,655. Mr Orton was released without charge and has since paid back the amount stolen by his wife including interest.

In mitigation Mrs Orton was described as a “pathologic gambler, utterly appalled by her own behaviour”. “Such was her level of stress that she turned to gambling as a form of relief which snowballed into a £500-a-night obsession”.

In passing sentence, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark, QC, noted “with the amount of money involved and such duplicity on your part, the court has no alternative but to pass a custodial sentence.”