'Family man' on £80k a year swindled company he worked for out of £6.7m... and then splurged it gambling on the stock market

A financial controller transferred himself £6.7 million from the cash reserves of the company he worked for to ‘secure the financial security of his wife and children’, despite already earning more than £80,000 per year.

James Hall, 49, then lost most of the money gambling on the FTSE 100 index, Bolton Crown Court heard. Hall, of Bolton, had worked for Merseyside-based shopfitting business Vale UK since 1996 and had become good friends with the managing director Paul Henerty, prosecution barrister Fiona McNeill told the court.

Mr Henerty described Hall as a “great asset to the company”, said he “trusted him implicitly”, and had even planned on making him a director. When the business moved to electronic banking in 2007, Hall was authorised to pay bills and make transfers online. He was also responsible for authorising the company’s expenses.

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In 2012, Hall approached Mr Henerty to ask for a loan of £250,000 to help buy a better house closer to his daughter’s school. Mr Henerty agreed but following this, Hall transferred himself £6.7 million over the next three years.

His fraud was uncovered during an accounting audit in March 2015. When confronted, Hall said that he had taken the money and gambled it on the FTSE 100 to ‘secure the financial security of his wife and children’ but that he had ‘very little left’.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Henerty said that he feels “anxious and physically sick” when he thinks about the amount of money that was taken. He added that he “couldn’t believe it” and now “finds it difficult” to trust those around him.

Despite stealing millions over three years, Hall “thought it was