Prolific Leeds fraudster caught in fresh £130,000 theft after bosses read Evening Post article
A finance-working fraudster jailed in 2023 was caught out again after his employers were alerted to an article about his past in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Staff were already suspicious of Lee Collins, but their concerns spiralled after reading about his crimes against two previous employers, when he spent £8,000 on a new kitchen using company funds.
The 47-year-old was jailed and later released after serving his sentence, but was returned to court this week where he admitted two counts of fraud by abuse of position.
Leeds Crown Court heard Collins was working at the City & Guilds of London Institute from June 2022, securing employment in an administration role via an employment agency.
His job was to process invoices and payment requests. He was on bail at the time for his previous fraud charges and was told he must disclose his position to any employers, which he failed to do, prosecutor John Hobley told the court.
From August to November 2022, he made 17 unauthorised payments to five bank accounts - belonging to his friends - then retrieved the cash, having spun them a false story.
In total, he took £80,545. The friends were arrested but later released without charge, with the police accepting they too had been duped by Collins.
Suspicions arose when a member of staff noticed financial discrepancies in the system. The Evening Post article concerned with his previous crimes was also brought to their attention.
It was found that Collins had also swindled an employee-reward voucher system in the company to take £49,970 worth, which he then spent in Argos, buying high-value items.
The total he stole from the City & Guilds came to £130,515.
During his police interview, Collins, of Rockwood Road, Osmondthorpe, admitted his crimes. He has two previous convictions - the fraud offences for his previous places of work.
He had worked at contracting services firm in Leeds between 2018 and 2019 as an accounts worker, siphoning money to his on accounts.
Having been suspended from that job as a result, he then got another job as an accounts manager at another firm in Leeds, when he ordered a kitchen using company funds, and £2,000 worth of goods from Amazon.
He was jailed for 34 months in March 2023.
Mitigating for this latest offences, Craig Sutcliffe said Collins was “realistic” about facing another jail sentence and said his best point were probably his guilty pleas.
Judge Andrews Stubbs KC told Collins: “The further you look into your behaviour the more dishonest it becomes.”
He called the frauds as “brazen behaviour”, jailing Collins for another 44 months.