Donna Pope, 47, used a company credit card to pay for holidays, takeaways, clothes and a personal trainer
Donna Pope, 47, of Liverpool Road, Bickerstaffe(Image: Lancashire Police)
This is the face of an Ormskirk mum who stole £50,000 from her terminally ill boss. Donna Pope, 47, used a company credit card to pay for holidays, takeaways and clothes, racking up huge debts for boss Eddie Tucker, 57, from Southport, while he was battling stage four cancer.
Pope, a bookkeeper at Ultimatum Group Ltd, a printing firm in Burscough, began using a company credit card to pay personal expenses in a sustained campaign of fraud lasting two years, from February 2022 to February 2024.
She ran up thousands of pounds of transactions on the card, shelling out for trips to Amsterdam and Malaga, as well as car insurance, phone bills and orders from Amazon, Shein, Zara and B&Q.
Pope, of Liverpool Road, Bickerstaffe, near Ormskirk, also used the company card to pay for a personal trainer and home improvements.
When her crimes were discovered, Mr Tucker confronted Pope, who took sick leave before leaving the company.
Eddie Tucker, 57, was “betrayed” by an employee who stole £50,000 from his firm while he battled stage 4 cancer(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Pope initially claimed a mistake on her Paypal account had led to the company card being used for personal payments, and that she hadn’t noticed that the funds — including £2,000 for EasyJet flights and £1,000 for radiators — had not come out of her account.
In a victim impact statement to the court, Mr Tucker said: “When I first began to suspect irregularities, Donna repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
“She gave excuses, including claiming she had accidentally connected her personal PayPal account to the business and that she would ‘sort it out.’
“These explanations were lies. She continued to deny the fraud for many months and left the company, citing she was offered another job that offered more flexibility.”
He added: “Her actions have devastated my business, my finances, and my family’s sense of security. The emotional impact is ongoing. We are still dealing with the consequences every day, and the road to recovery, financially, physically, and emotionally, remains uncertain.”
Yesterday (Thursday, July 30), mum-of-two Pope was jailed for 38 months at Preston Crown Court after pleading guilty to fraud by abuse of position at an earlier hearing.