A CHARITY worker fleeced her employers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, a court was told.

June Christian Lincoln, 51, was secretly stealing cash from the company where she was the financial controller.

However, her public façade was one of a caring woman who made charitable trips abroad.

She flew to the Philippines and Sri Lanka to work with deprived children and was also generous with advice and cash handouts for family, friends and others in the local community, it was claimed.

At Mold Crown Court, Lincoln of Oak Villas, Leeswood near Mold, was jailed for three years after she admitted four charges of fraud, with 29 offences of fraud, and obtaining money transfers by deception, taken into consideration.

Over a six-year period she had taken more than £215,000 from her employers, the Calypso soft drinks company on the Wrexham Industrial Estate.

Judge Paul Thomas told her that she was able to steal from her employers because they trusted her to such an extent that she had virtually a free hand over financial matters within the company.

He said: “You abused that trust in a persistent and calculating way with thefts which were sophisticated and motivated by greed.”

The court was told Lincoln worked at the company from 1998 to 2008 and as financial controller was in charge of organising payments to customers and suppliers.

She was sacked in December 2008 over a petty cash matter which did not give rise to any charge.

However, after she left, a full investigation was launched when the company received a cheque for nearly £5,000 from a debt recovery agency, which had nothing to do with the company.

A total of 34 false transactions were discovered where cash had been diverted into the defendant’s own account.

The total loss was £215,112, prosecutor Emmalyne Downing said.

Asked where all the money had gone, Meirion Lewis-Jones, defending, said there was no answer to that question.

There was no extravagant lifestyle and no expensive cars, although it was clear that she had been generous in supporting her disabled husband when his business collapsed.

He said: “Once she started taking money from her employers it became easy.
Being in the position she was, she found it relatively straightforward to do so.”

She was supporting financially her stepdaughter who was undergoing brain surgery, and she had been generous with advice and small cash handouts to others in the community, the court was told.