Civil servant, 36, 'gambled nearly £20,000 on government bank cards'

A civil servant at the Foreign Office spent nearly £20,000 on government credit cards in a month-long gambling binge, a court has heard. 

Laura Perry, 36, allegedly clocked up almost 250 transactions over 30 days with the online casino SkyBet.com using Foreign Office bank cards. 

Prosecutors allege that Perry blamed a former partner when questioned about the spending but was unable to provide any contact details for him.  

The admin assistant, who denies fraud, had been given the cards to book travel tickets, pay for accommodation and make payments for other costs incurred by government works and visiting dignitaries. 

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court heard that Perry squandered a total of £19,720 and withdrew another total of £2,220 from a Santander ATM. 

The 36-year-old, who worked on the Jordan and Lebanon desk in the FCO’s Levant Team, is also accused of using the card for a personal restaurant bill.   

She admitted to investigators that she had taken out the cash, claiming she muddled up the official cards with her own personal bank cards.

Her activity was discovered after her department carried out an audit of unaccounted for spending, prosecutors said.

When she was interviewed by investigators, Perry denied that she was the one who made the payments to SkyBet, instead blaming a former partner called William Bartlett.

But she unable to provide interviewers with contact details for him.

Prosecutor Brinder Soora said: ‘In a nutshell, what the Crown are saying is in relation to count one, Ms Perry used a corporate credit card that she was issued with to make 124 payments to SkyBet totaling £19,320.

‘Count two relates to four payments to SkyBet using a government procurement card which resulted in a £400 loss.

‘Ms Perry was employed as an assistant desk officer.
She was issued with two corporate credit cards by the Foreign and Commonwealth office.

‘The cards were issued in her name in about 2013 and were for ad hoc purchases at the time, say, for booking travel or accommodation for Foreign Office visitors.

‘The corporate card was supposed to be used for official expenditure relating to travel, subsistence and entertainment.’

Ms Soora told how when the cards were issued, Ms Perry signed a form that explicitly stated: ‘Under no circumstances must the cardholder use the card for personal spending.’

‘The restrictions were quite clear – that this card was not to be used for anything personal,’ continued the prosecutor.

‘Ms Perry had gone on to abuse the trust her employer had invested in her.’

Southwark Crown Court heard how on one occasion, Perry used one of the cards to pay for aristocrat a personal restaurant bill.

‘She has also used it to fund a SkyBet account, it is a gambling website.

Both the cards were added as a payment method on this account.

‘Ms Perry was not in the office on the dates that the payments were made to SkyBet.

‘It will come as no surprise to you that she was obviously not allowed to use either of these cards to go onto betting websites.

‘By using these cards for betting, the Crown say she committed fraud,’ explained Ms Soora.

‘The prosecution say she clearly had an issue with gambling.’

Ms Soora told how Perry’s own Santander accounts showed she had made multiple payments to bookies including PaddyPower, Jackpot Joy and Virgin Games.

‘This is despite her being in overdraft,’ added the prosecutor.

She explained that all payments made on the official cards were logged on the Foreign Office computer systems and that spending that passed a certain threshold would have to have been signed off by a superior. 

Perry, of Brampton Road, Forest Hill, southeast London, denies two counts of fraud by abuse of position.

The trial continues.