Scammed Bitcoin woman fleeced Leeds employer of £27,000 in bid to recoup losses
A woman stole more than £27,000 from her employer in Leeds after a cryptocurrency deal she was involved in turned sour.
Kathryn Sykes spent months draining cash from the Leeds-based tool-hire company, Zip-Hire, where she was trusted to cash up and deposit takings into the firm’s account.
Leeds Crown Court heard that the 55-year-old had delved into a doomed digital dealing involving Bitcoin and desperately tried to cover her losses.
She was given a suspended sentence this week after it was heard she had lived a blameless life up until that point.
However, having paid back around £2,000 to her former employer, no compensation order was made for the remainder after the court heard she had no means with which to pay.
Prosecutor Shebanee Devadasan said Sykes had joined Zip-Hire, based on Hawthorn Park in Leeds, in May 2022.
She was trusted to collect cash and deposit the money into the firm’s accounts. In November 2022 it was found by bosses that £3,000 in takings had not been deposited.
When they approached Sykes, she said the money would soon be deposited, but a full investigation was launched and the extent of her deception was uncovered.
They quickly realised that no money had been deposited in first four months since she started work at the company.
Confronting Sykes, she then handed over £2,015 and said she would repay the rest in installments.
The police were called and she was interviewed twice, refusing to answer questions on both occasions.
Sykes, of Badminton Close, Darlington, later admitted theft by employee. She has no previous convictions.
Mitigating, Jade Bucklow said her offending was “opportunistic”, had found herself scammed in a Bitcoin investment and put it down to a “lack of control of her own life at the time”.
She was not only taking cash from Zip-Hire, but was pawning her own possessions to recoup the losses.
She said Sykes had health issues and had undergone a quadruple heart bypass operation in 2019 and had a “very poor quality of life”.
Judge Neil Clark said Sykes had “shown remorse and shame” after being given a “degree of trust in a small, successful business”.
He gave her a two-year jail sentence, suspended for two years - the maximum possible sentence that is suspendible.
She was also told to complete 15 rehabilitation days with probation and put on a six-month electronically-tagged curfew, meaning she must spend every evening at home.