Steal £2.4m off bank? I deserved it - The Sun

A BANK worker in charge of online security siphoned off £2.4million — then told cops she DESERVED it because of her long hours.

Jessica Harper, 50, submitted 93 bogus invoices over four years and poured the payments into an account she set up.

She gave much of the money to her three brothers to buy rental properties and holiday lets. They believed she was earning far more than the £60,000 a year she got as interim head of fraud and security for digital banking at Lloyds and assumed she was being generous.

Yesterday Harper was jailed for five years after admitting fraud and money laundering.

Southwark Crown Court heard that after her arrest she told officers she had been rising at 5.30am and returning home to Croydon, South London, at 8pm as she was having to cover for two posts.

She added: "I saw the opportunity and thought, 'Given the hours I work I deserve it'. I know it is stupid, but that's how I felt. If I went to work for another company I would probably be earning four times as much."

She has since sold her home and so far repaid £709,000.

Judge Deborah Taylor told her: "You were a senior employee at the bank in a position with a very high degree of trust. This was at a time when Lloyds Bank was supported by a substantial amount of taxpayers' money following the difficulties suffered by the bank in the financial crisis.

"You disregarded your duties out of a sense of entitlement to take other people's money for your own benefit and the benefit of your family."

k.earlam@the-sun.co.uk