Former South Yorkshire Police worker must pay back £100,000

A former South Yorkshire Police worker who stole thousands of pounds from the force has been ordered to pay back a further £100,000.

Jacqueline Fletcher, 55, of Boundary Walk in Rotherham, was jailed for two years eight months in 2018 for four counts of theft, and told to pay back £47,000.

The order has since been reviewed, and a judge at Sheffield Crown Court said on 8 July that Fletcher must pay another £108,256.

If she does not pay the total in three months she could be jailed again, police said.

Fletcher worked in Attercliffe Police Station’s property store and in 2013 a “large amount of cash” was seized during a police investigation, the force said.

Fletcher said she counted and banked the money for the force but she actually banked £98,500 to her own account with £1,500 into the force account.

She left the force in 2015.

The theft came to light in summer 2017, police said, when a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) investigation connected to the seized money requested the cash but it could not be found.

An investigation was launched by the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit (YHROCU) and Fletcher was told to pay £47,000.

Police said the original 2018 order had been reconsidered and Fletcher must now pay the extra sum calculated from assets acquired since the first confiscation order.

If she fails to pay in three months she could face a 12-month prison sentence.

Det Supt James Axe, the force’s head of professional standards, said police employees should behave “professionally, honestly and with integrity” but “Fletcher showed none of these traits” and had “behaved disgracefully”.

He said the money recovered by YHROCU’s “vital work” means more money is secured for community grants and police training so criminals cannot keep benefitting.