A TILFORD man has been jailed for 18 months at Guildford Crown Court for defrauding his employers of more than £45,000. David Carter, 57, of Lowicks Road, was sentenced last Friday for 41 offences of false accounting and raising false invoices and 11 offences of obtaining property by deception. The court heard how, as operations manager for Microtech Services and then Microtech Implementation, arranging the hiring of the vehicle fleet for the company and authorising payment for the vehicles was part of his role. However, Carter failed to reveal to his employers that he was a partner, and effectively running TLC2000, one of the businesses that he was hiring the vehicles from. Abigail Husbands, prosecuting, said that when another member of the firm's staff, Mr Batchelor, checked over the invoices that had been signed off by Carter, he found they had been paying for VW Golf cars when they only used vans. "When he checked over the log it became apparent that there was no record that the company had actually hired any of the vehicles." The private director of Microtech Service, Mr Hill, found a similar discrepancy with his invoices. When confronted, Carter, who has since been declared bankrupt, admitted making false invoices and then authorising them for payment and initially made an arrangement to pay back the money. "One cheque did appear and did clear. The rest of the cheques were not honoured. Mr Hill then contacted the police," said Ms Husbands. When officers got in touch with TLC 2000, it turned out that Carter was a signatory on their bank account and was able to transfer money into his personal account. Between September and December 2005 Carter stole £24,382 from Microtech services. When employed by Microtech Implementations between December 2005 and March 2006 he defrauded the company of £21,302. Daniel Jameson, defending, said: "He does show regret, extreme regret, for his behaviour and the impact it has had upon his family. It's his family that he's most concerned about. "He fears that should he receive a custodial sentence today he will not be able to meet the rent and (his wife) will become homeless." He added: "He doesn't want to be a family that becomes a burden to the state." Mr Jameson added: "The money which he received through this fraud was for his ongoing living expenses." Judge Michael Hunter said: "Theft of a sum in excess of £45,000 is a large amount. "This is what you admitted to and it is also apparent that this was a long and calculated course of conduct and a very serious breach of trust."
