Embezzlement | Worker plunges employer into debt by stealing £150K - but only pays back £1

A finance employee at a formerly successful restaurant has been ordered to pay back one pound to her employer despite stealing over £150,000.

The employee in question, Nicola Nightingale, worked in the finance department of the The Hardwick in Abergavenny, a restaurant owned by Great British Menu chef Stephen Terry, when she started to extract money from the business with help from her husband Simon.

Nightingale worked for the restaurant since 2018 and was responsible for handling the company’s finances, including paying staff and sending invoices to suppliers. It was during the pandemic, when most hospitality businesses were brought to their knees, that Nightingale began paying tens of thousands of pounds into her partner’s bank account, amounting to 55 separate payments.

Other ways she extracted money included making direct payments to her account, inflating wage payments, and disguising payments to herself as wages or invoices.