A tax worker has been jailed after funding a 'luxury lifestyle' through a £160,000 Christmas savings scam.
Ruth Kevan, 58, was working for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) when she began running and exploiting a Christmas savings club which had been running for years to help hard-up colleagues save up for the festive season.
Kevan blew investors' cash on a 'luxury lifestyle' including holidays, clothes and trips to Scotland to watch the national rugby team in the Six Nations.
Yesterday Kevan was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for a string of fraud charges.
Recorder George Pulman QC said: "The sum involved here is £164, 493.
"You frittered the money away on a luxury lifestyle of holidays and nice clothes."
Basildon Crown Court heard how Kevan had run the money-making scheme successfully for a decade before her con was eventually discovered by HMRC investigators in April
Kevan was dismissed from her position at HMRC for gross misconduct in August this year.
She pleaded guilty to 21 charges of fraud and one charge of theft at a previous hearing at Southend Magistrates' Court last month.
