Letting agent sentenced to 26 months in prison following £92,000 fraud

A letting agent who ran a franchised branch closed down in 2015 after police were called in to investigate financial irregularities at the business has been jailed for 26 months for theft and fraud. He has also been disqualified from being a company director for five years. Thirty-six-year-old Peter Bell (pictured, left) was jailed at Northampton Crown Court earlier this week after pleading guilty to 11 counts of theft and four counts of fraud while running his branch of Enfields in Northampton on Mercer’s Row. His letting agent branch of the franchise network was closed overnight in August 2015 after Enfields directors were informed of a complaint against the business to police in Northampton. It subsequently transpired that there was a £92,000 gap in the branch’s finances which he had defrauded from an “untold” number of  tenants and landlords across the city. During the investigation it also transpired that Bell and his former partner Rebecca Kirton had used tenant deposits and landlords’ rent to finance a luxurious lifestyle including an expensive rental property, leased luxury cars and holidays, including a trip to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. Kirton was also sentenced by the judge after she pleaded guilty to five…