A 35-year-old man from Bradford is facing the prospect of not just Christmas behind bars, but many years behind bars for what he did last year. Christopher France, of previous good character, was due to be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court this week after pleading guilty to theft at the city’s magistrate’s court. However, as open and shut case as it seems, the sentencing has been adjourned due to there being no report submitted from the probation service!
His crime? Stealing more than £95,000 from popular bingo chain Buzz Bingo! The total sum of £95,600 was taken between January 13th and May 17th in 2019 – a heist lasting 5-months until he was eventually caught. Although the details fail to explain how he achieved this, one can only assume he was a member of staff at the Bradford branch.
A warning has been issued…
…to France that he may very well face prison time for his actions, but I’d have thought he would have known that without being warned! Buzz Bingo is the UK’s biggest and most popular bingo chain with an online bingo destination too.
Coining it in
Bingo halls are often a target when it comes to thieves looking to make easy money, and there are also instances where staff feel the same – temptation gets the better of them and they always end up getting caught with their fingers in the till! This time last year, a Louisiana man found his luck had run out when he was caught rigging bingo games to the tune of more than $10,000!
Police say John Cook (or should that be crook?) was recorded manipulating a video Bonanza Bingo game by handpicking the balls he wanted to come out and then hiding the winner until he was ready to end the game! It wasn’t once, it wasn’t twice – it happened a total of four times and he netted thousands of dollars for three people, including himself and his sister!
Another in a long line of bingo hall thefts is Susan Miller, who in 2017 falsified vouchers in order to steal more than £1,500 from her employer, Gala Bingo. Her role was to take charge of the money – handing out the winnings and such and was taking in cash for dodgy vouchers, allowing her to rake in £1,505 in just 5-months! She confessed to stealing the money to pay off her debts.
The biggest thief of all was…
…a bingo manager from Newcastle who stole £100K from her employer over a five-year period! Between 2008 and 2013 she stole £104,516 by falsifying accounts and when her case came to court, she was handed a lenient sentence of just 4-years and ordered to pay back just £1! The courts took into account that her daughter (who was 12 at the time of sentencing) was suffering from a rare form of cancer and required extensive treatment, and the money was spent on taxis, food and trips to the hospital to see her daughter.
Source: “Man Warned He May Face Prison for Stealing £95,600 from Buzz Bingo in Bradford”. Telegraph & Argus. November 24, 2020.
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Comments (1)
lollipops321 11/30/20, 10:11:03 AM
May face prison? A theft of that magnitude I’d have thought prison was the only option! That’s a phenomenal sum of money to steal – how did he ever think he would get away with it!
