A PAYROLL supervisor at a top North Yorkshire tree nursery fraudulently tripled her salary to go on foreign holidays and feed a gambling habit.

Harrogate Magistrates Court heard Rina Parkin siphoned money from Johnsons of Whixley’s wage bill into her own pocket for a year and used it to pay for holidays and other expenses before an end-of-year audit spotted her fraud.

By then she had taken £35,610.54 illegally by keeping the names of former employees on the payroll and getting their salaries paid into four different bank accounts she controlled. She also, legitimately, received her £1,200 a month net salary.

Because two of the bank accounts were jointly held with her husband, police arrested him as well as her, though he knew nothing about the fraud and she had lied to him about the extra money in their bank accounts.

Recorder Simon Myerson QC said gambling had brought about her downfall, and created the debts that led to her turning fraudster.

He told her: “You brought shame upon yourself and your family. You landed your husband in a prison cell and he has divorced you.”

He gave her a 51-week prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition she goes to a gambling counselling group such as Gambling Anonymous, does 18 months’ supervision, undergoes a probation rehabilitation course and reports to a judge on her progress on conquering her gambling. He also confiscated her car, the only asset she possesses. The judge said the money had “vanished”.

Parkin, 31, of Shepley Road, Audenshaw, Manchester, pleaded guilty to 12 charges of fraud.

Her barrister, James Bourne-Arton, said Parkin now lived in one-room bed and breakfast accommodation with her daughter and had lost her job, though she hoped to start work as a receptionist soon. She gambled online with the National Lottery.

The fraud had started with an “accident” when a new payroll system was introduced.

Tests had revealed the system did not delete the names of former employees, and instead of reporting this to her employers, she had used it to take money which she needed to pay off £8,000 debts and household expenses.