A trusted book-keeper stole more than £1 million from her employer to fund a property empire, including a luxury home in Belize she planned to retire to.
Louise Gow, 64, diverted up to £200,000 a year from Smuggler, an award-winning video production company – simply by putting her own bank account details on the invoices she was paid to process.
As colleagues were being laid off or asked to take pay cuts during the pandemic, she increased the amount she diverted into her own pocket.
When confronted – via a videocall as she visited Belize – she admitted stealing a couple of hundred thousand, and finally the £1,116,82.05 it was discovered she had taken over five years, blaming the menopause.
Now, after being jailed for 44 months last week, she is beginning her retirement behind bars.
At a hearing at Lewes Crown Court last Wednesday, Judge Mark van der Zwart said: “Your thefts have enabled you to build what seems to have been a substantial portfolio of homes, including a large luxury home you planned to retire to in Belize.
“During the covid era when valued members of staff were laid off and everybody in the company took a pay cut, your helping yourself to the company funds seems to have increased.
“You seem to have been surprised when the managing director Fergus Brown made a report to the police. You were planning on continuing to steal for longer until you had taken enough.
“You returned to the UK when you could have stayed in that country and contests attempts to extradite you.
“You sought to blame the menopause and to reframe your actions as a way of providing employment to people in poorer parts of the world.
“The menopause can provide an explanation for why peole behave in ways different to how they behaved before.
“But it cannot amount to justification for spending five years plundering the resources of your trusted employer, funnelling the proceeds into your property empire.”
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Mr Brown said Gow had been a trusted member of staff since he founded Smuggler in 2008.
He said: “She used her position of power and authority to steal large amounts of money from us and to fund a luxury lifestyle for her and her husband.
“It limited our growth. We lost a material amount of money that would have been used to grow our company.
“Her assistant took the theft very badly. She thought they were friends. It has affected her trust. She was very hurt by the situation and has no one to speak to about what has happened.”
Prosecuting, Rio Pahlavanpour said her deception began to unravel on 29 April 2021, when Barclays contacted Mr Brown saying someone was trying to transfer money to Smuggler Ltd was using the wrong account number.
Gow initially tried to explain it away as an innocent mistake, but then Barclays found more and more examples. Gow was eventually charged with fraud by abuse of position between July 2016 and May 2021.
Mr Pahlavanpour said the Crown would not be making an application under the Proceeds of Crime Act as a civil case was in progress to recover the funds.
Defending, Caroline Stewart said: “There was an intention to put it all back but she was never able to do that. when it was brought up she did admit responsibility.
“She was in Belize, in a remote meeting when that admission was made and she returned to this country knowing that there would be some serious consequences.”
She added: “She doesn’t understand how she could have done something so stupid and self destructive.
“She has thrown away her longstanding career, her marriage – she’s now divorced. The esteem those who knew her held her in, her career – it’s all gone.”
Gow, who now lives in St Albans, was declared bankrupt in February. A receiver has now been appointed in the civil case to recover funds.
GREEDY BITCH
This is the society Margaret Bloody Thatcher created, the me, me, me greed encouraged environment. If you can’t get your property and wealth empire honestly, you’ll do it dishonestly! I’m sure all the high and mighty will say they’ve never done a dishonest thing in their lives as they sit down to their tax returns where they’ll use any means possible to not pay the fair amount taxes due that us ordinary mortals have little choice in being bled dry of via our direct taxes and indirect taxes and VAT’s, and now Levies that bleed us dry to the point of leaving us to vitual starvation.
As for this woman? She’ll be out in 12 months on good behaviour, free to enjoy her ill gotten gains while the rest of us contemplate the fact that even past retirement, we’ll still have to carry on working, still be paying taxes until the point of death, where we will STILL be paying taxes, and a death by then for many, which will be gladly welcomed from the misery of the hard labour for little rewards under the Conservative Party, that has installed in us the greed mantra and the dishonesty and greed by any means they epitomise so well!!!
This country badly needs to change!
But it won’t, all the time people and those in power have the ability to be corrupted so easily!
Thatcher ???? More like another self entitled English K,ob, plenty of them around the last few Millenia.
Exactly right . Very very true Simon It’s the money grabbing type attitude that Thatcher brought into the countries behaviour that’s now wrecking the country. That coupled with the selling off of the countries assets again which Thatcher also introduced.
A rather strange thing to say – 34 years after Margaret Thatcher left office !
Do you not think individuals who steal (whatever the amount) should take responsibility for their own actions ?
Perhaps people only commit murder because of Adolf Hitler and all the other dictators past and present ? The idea that people only behave in certain ways because of politics is beyond ridiculous.
John
Take a good look at the choice we have in elections all the parties are self serving Do as we say not as we do comes to mind just different shades of grey
Less to do with thatcher more to do with lack of policing of fraud. Police waste their time dealing with drunks and junkies rather than with the real criminals out there.
Nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher lol
Desperate theory!
I have been rented a property owned by this woman for the last 7 years, over this entire time I have repeatedly complained about the disrepair. She has ignored every single complaint. Finally I complained to environmental health in my local area who have been complying a criminal investigation against her over the last few months. She then tried to visit us but couldn’t as she never protected our deposit. It also came to light via our bank that we had been paying our rent to her personal account instead of the limited company account it should have been. In my opinion there is a lot (a hell of a lot) more to this woman’s fraud. I tried to report info to police who informed me it was civil and weren’t helpful. You only have to look at her companies to see this is not an isolated event. She has repeatedly taken hundreds of thousands from companies before striking them off and continues to file fraudulent accounts via her own companies (for example stating no assets owned etc) when this is not true. Looks like she will still get away with the brunt of her actions.
Louise Gow was dishonest going back to the early 80’s. She was stealing money then from the production company she worked for and from the employees who’s invoices she often refused to pay. She would randomly slashed their fees, refuse to process invoices, hold up payments for months or not pay at all. Now she’s blaming menopause (if you look up the symptoms fraud is not listed), blaming the fact that she was caught for her not being able to pay it back and claiming to be helping poor people in the 3rd world by spending her ill gotten gains on a luxury mansion. This did not start with menopause or during Covid. There is a pattern of dishonesty and abuse going back decades.