- A financial assistant stole £100,000 ($113,254) from her boss, according to local outlet Lancs Live.
- Laura Howarth pleaded guilty to stealing up to £6,000 a month to fund a lavish, Instagram-worthy lifestyle.
A Blackpool financial assistant pleaded guilty to stealing £100,000 ($113,254) from her boss to fund an Instagram-worthy lifestyle that she couldn't afford on her own £900 a month salary.
Laura Howarth bought a white SUV, hair extensions, and VIP concert tickets — sharing otherwise inexplicably lavish belongings and experiences to social media in the style of other seemingly wealthy women, "including her boss's wife," Lancs Live reported.
In the legal proceedings, the court heard that Howarth stole "every single week" — averaging £3,000 a month — aside from when she was on vacation or maternity leave — in order to keep up Instagram appearances.
According to prosecutor Stuart Neale, Howarth began stealing "almost immediately" from British Independent Utilities after she was hired in 2013 to keep track of the company's petty cash and expense accounts. Cash withdrawals from ATMs were reportedly forbidden by the company, but Howarth was accused of withdrawing £50 from a Royal Bank of Scotland ATM the same year and adding the money to a legitimate expense claim in order to make the books balance.
The court heard that Howarth had even applied for extensions to the credit card limits in order to spend up to £6,000 a month.
Five years after Howarth's hiring financial controller, Chris Russell, spotted a cash withdrawal from a company credit card linked to Howarth and couldn't locate the card statements. The discovery reportedly led to an investigation and Howarth being suspended from her job. According to Lancs Live, Howarth sent a WhatsApp message to her employer the same night saying, "I'm sorry for everything."
Jailing Howarth for 10 months, Judge Richard Gioserano told the defendant: "You stole a great deal of money to provide a lifestyle you couldn't afford — a glimpse of which can be seen on your Instagram account."
Russ Priestley, the owner of British Independent Utilities, said he had suspicions about Howarth when he noticed her driving a new Kia Sportage and when, after splashing out on a £500 a ticket to see his favorite comedian, he noticed Howarth and her husband sitting in the row behind him, the outlet reported.
Howarth originally claimed to have shared the money with her colleagues, the court heard.
"I have worked over 100 hours a week, sacrificing social time and time with my family to build this business up," Priestly told the court, the outlet reported. "These events have made me question my choices and fundamentally make me look at people differently."
According to the outlet, Judge Gioseranoa derided Howarth for using the funds "not to alleviate genuine financial hardship, not to pay for private hospital treatment for a sick member of your family, but to fund a lifestyle you couldn't otherwise afford," he said. "Honest, hardworking people, work hard to try and afford this, and if they can't afford it in that way they simply accept that. They do not resort to theft in order to fund it."