A “greedy” fraudster will give birth behind bars after she was jailed for stealing more than £360,000 from her employer.

Lynette Alptekin, from Derby, used the money to buy a car, a house and fund trips abroad.

The 40-year-old woman had abused her position of trust at a family-run firm to create false invoices and fake suppliers to transfer money into her own bank accounts over a four-year period.

Alptekin – who is now heavily pregnant – left the Clay Cross firm Carlton Technologies in 2019.

It was only when a new financial controller noticed the bank discrepancies that her theft came to light, with suspicious payments into 10 different bank accounts, each between £60 and £3,000.

In a victim impact statement, company director Max Crampton told Derby Crown Court he had been forced to make one person redundant and take out a personal loan against his family home.

“Our credit rating was destroyed, and we struggled financially. The impact of the fraud will impact us for years to come,” he said, according to Derbyshire Live.

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The firm nearly closed due to the financial loss.

The prosecutor, Aaron Dinnes, said: “There were 246 suspicious payments into 10 different bank accounts totalling £362,103.73.

“She (Alptekin) said she did not know how much money she had taken but had used it to buy a house and on trips to Turkey. She said she was ‘not in a good head space’.”

Appearing in court on Wednesday 20 April, Alptekin admitted one count of fraud by abuse of position.

She has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Recorder Justin Wigoder described her as a greedy woman.

He said: “The impact has been graphically illustrated by the victim impact statement. The impact on the business was very nearly terminal and the impact personally on them was huge.”

Ali Naseem Bajwa QC, mitigating, said his client was due to give birth to her child in June and that she recognised the seriousness of her offending.

Derbyshire police’s Financial Investigation Team continues its work on this case under the Proceeds of Crime Act in an effort to return as much money as possible to the victim.

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