Bank employee tried to transfer £27,000

May 9 2008 by Allison Dickinson, Chester Chronicle

A FRAUD analyst with a major Chester bank was jailed after he tried to siphon off £27,000 from customer accounts.

Timothy Glyn Maddocks, 24, was employed by MBNA in May 2005.

He identified five “friendly” accounts and tried to transfer money from them to fund a gambling addiction.

The accounts had no phone number listed, which meant the customer lived abroad and queries would have to be dealt with by post. Having obtained the account details and security passwords, Maddocks called the bank from a phone box pretending to be the customer and requested transfers of between £3,000 and £7,000.

The only successful transaction was the first attempt on August 22, 2006, when Maddocks used this method to transfer £5,000 into a current account belonging to Michael Alan Smith, 23.

Smith, who was not employed by MBNA, did not tell him the transaction was successful, and instead spent the cash.

Because he thought the transaction had failed, Maddocks tried again to transfer £3,000 into another of Smith’s accounts on February 7, but the funds were returned to MBNA because the account was dormant.

Further attempts to transfer £7,000 on March 5 and £6,000 on March 27 to an account used by Smith’s girlfriend’s brother were stopped by MBNA. A fifth and final attempt was made on April 9 when Maddocks tried to transfer £6,000 to an Ellesmere Port-based bank account.

He was dismissed from the bank on May 24, 2007, but contacted a former colleague two weeks later asking him to provide customer details. The colleague refused.

Maddocks, of Aldgate, Ellesmere Port, was arrested on July 4 and pleaded guilty to all five offences and provided a “full” confession.

During sentencing at Chester Crown Court on Tuesday, May 6, Judge Roger Dutton accepted that Maddocks had been diagnosed with ADHD and had a gambling addiction, but sentenced him to 16 months in prison.

Smith, of Beechfield Road, Ellesmere Port, initially denied all knowledge of the scam when arrested on September 4. He later pleaded guilty to obtaining a money transfer by deception.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison, suspended for two years, 200 hours of unpaid work for the community and must repay £5,000 to MBNA.