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It is a sad sign of the times when a Bingo Manager is jailed for stealing more that £31,000 of the House’s money. It has been reported that Helen Walker who was the Bingo Manager at the Buckingham Bingo Hall in County Durham, wrote out (I.O.U’s) to the tune of £31,000 and left notes in the safe after just helping herself to the money.
Lots of people may ridicule the lady for what she has done, but it is a sad day when someone gets into so much debt that they felt the need to resort to, basically stealing money from their place of work to sustain their living expenses. In this instance it was the position of the job Helen Walker held (Bingo Manager), which enabled her to mount up so many (I.O.U’s), as it has been put!
Mr Cowen, who was the prosecuting lawyer in this case said, “It emerged it was common place for Walker to take money and leave IOUs, making it easy for investigators to work out she had taken around 31,000 over a year. When arrested, last August, she initially made no reply to police questioning, but in a subsequent interview she made admissions, claiming she intended to pay back the money, but it, "got out of control”.
It also emerged in court that Walker took another £500, by printing off the bingo companies promotional vouchers and pocketing the cash herself. The bingo company became suspicious after it came about that £16,000 was missing from the safe and they notified Helen Walker of their intention to come down and check the safe, her reply to them was, if they came down she would leave and that is exactly what happened.
Helen Walker earned £46,000 a year in her job as Bingo Manager at Buckingham Bingo hall, but it has been said that her debts spiralled out of control after a relationship breakdown. Walker was jailed for 15 months and Judge Guy Whitburn QC told Walker as he was passing sentence: "It can't be assumed anyone who steals a large sum like this, who is in a position of responsibility, can do anything other than go to prison."
The Lady is now paying the price for taking money, that was not hers to take in the first place, as well as losing a very high paid job. You may ask how she got away with taking money from the Bingo Hall over such a long period of time, (a whole Year)? Only the Bosses of the Buckingham Bingo Hall can really answer that question, and this would be an answer that I would find interesting to hear!
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