A FORMER Cardigan woman with a law degree has been given a suspended sentence for fraud.

Darial Phillips, 34, of High Street, Llanbradach, admitted fraud by misuse of trust and was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on September 26.

Phillips admitted defrauding the A470 Netball Association of £7,471.05 between April 2018, and August 2019.

The court heard from prosecutor Mr Scouller that the first transaction was an Amazon Prime payment on April 3, 2018, when she was treasurer of the league. There were also payments to bars in Cardiff including the Philarmonic and Kiwis.

The fraud was first discovered in 2019 when one of the committee members had a meeting with Phillips and it was found that there was a deficit of around £10,000.

Phillips told the committee member that she wasn’t sure if her ex-partner had been transferring money from the account into their personal account.

A second meeting was called where it was decided they needed to find out how much had been taken and how it was going to be paid back to the league.

The committee member then sent Phillips an email with an Excel spreadsheet that she had compiled, asking her to explain as much of it as she could.

A further meeting was arranged, and Phillips cancelled at the last minute, stating she could not attend due to illness.

The committee member was not happy with this and told the rest of the committee what she knew at that point and had found that there was around £20,000 that she could not account for.

A further recorded meeting in August 2019 took place and Phillips reiterated the initial statement putting the blame on her ex-partner, saying he may have transferred the money from the account.

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She agreed to a payment plan for about £4,000 but no payments were made.

Her ex-partner entered into conversation with the committee on her behalf as her health was deteriorating and another payment plan was agreed but this was then backtracked upon.

After the committee reported the fraud to the police, her ex-partner told them how she had told him in February 2019, that she had taken the money and he took out a loan of around £6,000 which he transferred to her.

Mr Dennison, defending, said that his client had paid £4,400 out of her own account to cover venue expenses for the A470 Netball League which would go towards paying it back.

He also said that the payments were ‘accidental’ and made via using the wrong card or by using her mobile phone to make payments.

He stated that Phillips, who has endometriosis and mental health issues, was going through a severe depressive episode during the time of the offending and had not offended since.

His Honour Judge Jenkins told Phillips that as she should know, she would be extremely unlikely to work in law again.

He agreed with the defence that she has a realistic prospect of rehabilitation and stressed that due to her conditions she was receiving treatment for and this prospect, that despite the severity of the fraud meaning it would be an automatic prison sentence, he was imposing a suspended sentence.

Phillips was jailed for 10 months, suspended for 15 months. She also has to pay £1,500 costs in full within six months, complete a rehabilitation order and pay £140 in surcharge.