A woman previously convicted for defrauding two south Bucks companies has been jailed today for putting a High Wycombe care home out of business after stealing more than £45,000.

Lynne Pleaden's employers at Lloyd Scott Healthcare – which provided residential healthcare for the elderly -only realised what she had done after she was arrested by police in 2014 for a different fraud offence.

The 50-year-old, of Ashton Road in Luton, from was previously found to have used money from companies she worked for to pay for jewellery, clothes and holidays in Barbados.

Her long list of offending began in 1999 when she was jailed for 15 months for a charge of theft by employee.

She was jailed two more times, in 2003 and 2008, for making false representations to make a financial gain, which were among 10 convictions on her record.

She had also defrauded Flowerland Garden Centre, in Bourne End and Silverson Machines Ltd, in Chesham, out of thousands of pounds when she worked for them.

Before she began work at Lloyd Scott Healthcare, in High Wycombe in January 2014 she handed in a CV to the owner Simon Scott complete with references and claimed she was a chartered accountant.

Judge Francis Sheridan, sitting at Aylesbury Crown Court, heard that Pleaden was eager to please and "hard working" at the job, even coming in a fifth day a week when she was only contracted to work four.

Mr Scott eventually saw an article in the local newspaper about her in connection with fraud but she denied it and claimed she was the victim of identity theft.

The company continued to trust the convicted fraudster but in October 2014 Metropolitan Police officers arrived to arrest her for yet another fraud offence.

After the company replaced her with another finance manager, they discovered huge anomalies in the accounts and HMRC started to chase payments of tax.

The company discovered Pleaden had paid £45,640, which was due to go to HMRC, into her own bank account and later found her claim of being a chartered accountant on her CV was a lie.

Lloyd Scott Healthcare, which had been in business for 18 years, could not find the tax funds and went bust, the court heard.

Pleaden admitted one count of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by abuse of position.

In mitigation Neil Jarvis said: "She is now on a committee where she visits Bronzefield Prison twice a week where she helps rehabilitation.

"She has provided information to Channel 4 and the BBC about people affected by prison. Everything ticks the boxes for somebody who has completely rehabilitated themselves.”

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Sheridan said: "The summary of how she treats other people's money is well demonstrated by her criminal offending.

"The fact is she misled the losers in this case into believing she was qualified and trustworthy as their book keeper…

"There is no money to compensate the losing company and whether others who lost their jobs have found new ones I don't know."