A personal assistant who stole more than £166,000 from her estate agency employer has been jailed for two years and three months after her “pure greed” was exposed during a business sale.

Hemalatha Jayaprakash, 44, worked at Northwood’s central Birmingham franchise office for 12 years before being caught having made dozens of illegal transfers from the business and client accounts to fund what was described in court as a ‘lavish lifestyle.’

The mother-of-two from Great Barr was hired in 2012 as an accounts manager before becoming office manager and then personal assistant to director Nin Rehal.

Despite living in a £1 million property and owning at least eight rental properties, Birmingham Crown Court heard that Jayaprakash continued to steal from the business for over three years.

The fraud came to light when Rehal sold his Northwood franchise in December 2023, and a £26,000 discrepancy was discovered during the due diligence process. It revealed payments had been made to non-existent landlords to the same bank account, later identified as Jayaprakash’s, when she used it to submit an expenses claim.

Confronted

When she was first confronted, Jayaprakash claimed she had stolen £55,000 and offered to repay the money. “That amount was a vast understatement,” prosecutor Richard Davenport told the court.

According to Birmingham Live, however, it was established that she had taken £167,062.68 in over 158 transactions between January 2021 and March 2024. She was suspended in March 2024 and later dismissed.

In a victim impact statement, Rehal highlighted that Jayaprakash stole £6,480 when he was away from the office due to the death of his mother 24 hours earlier. “This is the level of greed and deception and betrayal we are dealing with,” Rehal said.

The fraud has caused Rehal ‘immense’ distress and ‘devastating’ financial losses, forcing him to release equity from his family home to make ends meet, including support for his two children who are at university.

Everything I have read about this lady takes me to the belief she is from an affluent background where she ought not to need to steal to fund a lifestyle. This was pure greed.”

Samreen Akhtar, defending, claimed the money was used to pay Jayaprakash’s childrens’ school fees and help relatives in India who had lost their livelihoods due to flooding.

He added that Jayaprakash had now repaid most of the money, although the judge expressed scepticism at the claim and Rehal, said he had not yet received a penny as the funds from the sale of the business had been withheld.

In her summary, Recorder Amy Jackson said: “Everything I have read about this lady [leads’ me to the belief she is from an affluent background where she ought not to need to steal to fund a lifestyle. This was pure greed.”

Passing sentence, she added that the case was “a long-running and significant fraud and abuse of trust”.