Woman cheated on husband with personal trainer

A woman stole thousands of pounds from her letting agency bosses almost putting the firm out of business. Joanne Barker siphoned the cash into her account as well as those of her unsuspecting husband and the personal trainer she was having an affair with. It is thought the 46-year-old fiddled up to GBP130,000 from the well-respected company she worked for and landlords.

However, she has been spared jail after a court was told she now looks after her sick mother.. Barker, a mother from Rochdale, secretly stole from dozens of clients of lettings agency Barton Kendal, where she worked as the manager of its Rochdale office, the Manchester Evening News reports[1]. But after she stole thousands from the business it left the owner of the family firm 'humiliated and embarrassed',

The court was told he had been left on the verge of a breakdown while the business was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Prosecutor Patrick Williamson told Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court how Barker joined the family-owned company, which has offices in Rochdale and Middleton, in 2009 and became the firm's lettings manager at the Rochdale branch. But in May 2014 she began her crimes, diverting rental income into her personal account, creating fictitious landlords and inventing remedial work.

Cash also went into her bank before she was finally caught in November 2018. But her crimes came to light when some landlords complained that they had not received their rental payments, only receiving their money from Barker when they 'persisted'. An investigation by the firm's owners, the Tweedley family, revealed "significant" sums of money were missing, said Mr Williamson.

Barker was married to the manager of the Middleton branch, Paul Barker, and the couple were friends with another couple, Jo-Anne and Ian Tweedley who were directors of the firm.

The couples between them purchased the Middleton branch in 2015 and each person had a quarter share in it, the court was told. Both branches were run as separate companies with separate bank accounts, said Mr Williamson. By the time the missing money was discovered the firm was 'in real danger of bankruptcy' and the Tweedleys had to pump their own cash into the firm to save it from going under.

The couple approached a family friend who was a retired detective who realised that 'fraudulent activity may have taken place' and they contacted police, said the prosecutor. When details of the missing cash began to emerge, Barker resigned and, the court was told, around this time she was having an 'affair' with her personal trainer, Andrew Taylor, who she used as part of her fraud. The Tweedleys noticed some Barton Kendal cheques were made out to the defendant and her husband, all written in the defendant's handwriting.

Two were made out to the defendant herself totalling GBP331.57, and and three more were made out to her husband, totalling GBP2,745, although the recipient account of the cheques signed to the husband belonged to the defendant, the court heard. None of the cheques actually ended up in her husband's accounts, said Mr Williamson. Barker and her husband made a series of improvements at their home in Rochdale in 2017 including a new central heating system, using Barton Kendal contractors.

Barker, without telling either her husband or the Tweedleys, paid for the work from a Barton Kendal account. Investigators later found a 'false invoice' suggesting the work, costing GBP3,640, was carried out at the firm's Middleton branch. This was despite it not even having central heating, the court was told.

Barker also persuaded a retired client, who was renting out his former home through the firm, that 'remedial' work on the property he had ordered was almost complete even though it had never started. He agreed to forego two rental payments totalling GBP1,600 and also handed over GBP1,800 in cash to Barker for work which wasn't done, the court was told. The defendant also allowed her personal trainer, Mr Taylor, to stay at a Barton Kendal property for four months even though there was no record he paid any rent.

She told her personal trainer he didn't have to pay, the court was told. The defendant told another client who hadn't been paid that she had cancer, according to the prosecutor. It later transpired that rental money owed to this landlord was deposited in Barker's account.

Payments due to another landlord, the court was told, were 'in fact being paid into' Barker's personal trainer's account by the defendant even though he was not registered as a landlord. Six deposits amounting to GBP5,357 were paid into Barker's account and a further 18 payments totalling GBP8,586 went to Mr Taylor's account, according to the Crown. In a victim personal statement read to the court, Ian Tweedley said: "We acquired the business in February 2008, just before the crash unfortunately.

We made some very tough decisions initially and worked tirelessly to maintain the business In really difficult times. We provided stability and then built up the business, employing local people. We were one of the leading agents In the Rochdale area, with a long standing reputation built up over the years from ourselves and the Barton family, and I thought life was rosy.

"We were financially secure, albeit not rich, the mortgage was close to being paid off and I was geared to retiring at 60. We employed Joanne as our lettings manager, shortly after the property market crashed In 2008, and she had become a valued and trusted family friend. I felt assured that she'd run the business in my absence.

"In November 2018, our life, security and business came crashing down, when I realised Joanne had been fraudulently syphoning off client's money from the business and stolen all the monies from the tenants' deposits. Thursday 8 November 2018 was definitely the worst day of my life. I was in the office at 3am as I couldn't sleep.

My heart sunk as I realised my business was in tatters and there wasn't enough money to pay the landlords their rents. At 6am the same morning, my sister rang to inform me that my nephew had been involved in a tragic car accident and lost his life - I was numb, I had hit rock bottom and my sister and her family needed my support at a truly horrendous point In our lives. "What followed was two years of stress, panic, exhaustion, to the point of nearly having a breakdown." He went on that he 'felt humiliated, embarrassed' and was 'as low and desperate as I'd ever been'.

He said he and his wife 'ploughed all our savings' to save the business and they took out a GBP50,000 to pay off contractors. "The impact on the business was almost catastrophic - we lost some big landlords, over 50 managed properties, approximately GBP50,000 per annum. Our Insurance premiums rose from GBP1,600 per annum to GBP20,000 per annum," said Mr Tweedley, who added: "Our standing as one of the leading estate agents in the town dropped.

Our reputation, which is so important in the estate agency business, had been severely tarnished. Despite the fact we were doing our utmost to ensure all our landlords were recompensed for their losses. Suspicion not only fell on myself, but also on our staff and we somehow had to try and keep morale up, as we dealt with case after case of deception."

Richard Dawson, defending, told the court his client, who had no previous convictions, was 'otherwise of good character' although she he had now 'lost her name' after admitting she had 'stolen or defrauded' some GBP28,000 over a number of years. He pointed to a 'positive' pre-sentence report prepared by the Probation Service and he urged the judge to suspended any prison sentence, saying his client was now a carer for her poorly mother. She was claiming benefits as she was unable to work because of mental health problems, the court was told.

Judge Angela Nield expressed concern that forensic accountants working for the insurers had concluded the amount defrauded was GBP128,868, rather than the GBP28,868 alleged by the prosecution. The prosecutor admitted he could not explain why the figure suggested by the police investigation was so much lower and nor why the case had taken five years to come to court. The judge said she had to sentence the defendant on the lower figure.

The judge told Barker: "You were one of those who were part and parcel of the structure of the company and were quite clearly trusted to the highest level. This is a significant breach of that trust.... There's no excuse for the systematic theft and stripping of assets of the company... effectively bringing the company to the bring of potential bankruptcy.

You have betrayed individuals who have more than an employer-employee relationship with you who trusted you to run that business on your own as they hoped you would." Judge Neild found Barker was responsible for a 'calculated' and 'sophisticated deception' and had 'destroyed a family unit'. However, she said 'punishment in this case cannot only by secured by immediate custody', noting that sending her to prison would also punish Barker's poorly mother.

Barker, now of Waterman Walk in Salford Quays[2], was handed a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years after she had admitted one charge of fraud by false representation.

She was also ordered to carry out 30 days of rehabilitation activity and 180 hours of unpaid work.

She was also placed on a curfew which requires her to be at home between 7pm and 7am for the next two months.

References

1. ^ Manchester Evening News reports (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
2. ^ Salford Quays (www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk)