Andrew Warman Finance Director Sentenced over £10k Fraud

The former finance director of an architecture firm was given a 16-month prison sentence today, which has been suspended for 2 years the BBC has reported here

His name is Andrew Warman, a 53 year old man from Fulham in London. He pleased guilty to this significant abuse of his position, while he worked at Griffin Green LTD in Norfolk.

He has been described as “throwing their trust away” in exchange for financial gain.

The owner of the company Mr Clarke has been left with many months of uncertain times due to this large financial loss.

His record has now been marked, and he has received a ban for six years which prevents him from becoming a director of a company. He also received a community service order of 200 hours of unpaid labour.

His defence have blamed his actions on brief psychological problems.

Mr Warman and Mr Clarke became business partners with equal share in the company in 2013, however it shortly dissolved in 2015 because of significant financial problems. They could have perhaps stayed afloat if they had received an unsecured biz loan, or perhaps peer to peer investment.

After money went missing from accounts in January 2015 Mr Warman was arrested. He had taken a personal payment for a business contract, and only returned a sixth of the sum to the business accounts.

Financial Fraud at a UK All Time High

The total value of financial fraud within the United Kingdom reached a 15 year high point in 2017, with £2.11bn the estimated total cost. The accountancy firm known as BDO analysed all reported fraud incidents that were valued over £50,000, and noticed that in comparison with the 2003 count of 212 cases, there were 577 cases in 2017. The average value stolen from a company in these cases was up from £1.5m in 2003 to an incredible £3.66m in 2017.

The main culprit for this high level of fraud was the financial services sector, who’s value of fraud increased from £214.9m in 2016 to £899.7m in 2017. The number of reported cases has also doubled.