A woman has been jailed for more than two years after she used her position as treasurer of a North Herts church to launder over £125,000 that she had stolen from her employer.

Alison Blake, 52, also stole collection money during her time as treasurer of All Saints Church in Radwell.

She was the sole signatory on the Parochial Church Council (PCC) account, and used her position to transfer stolen cash from Herts-based Kier Fleet Service, where she worked.

During sentencing on Friday, August 4, St Albans Crown Court heard that she then paid the money into her own account and used it as "retail therapy" to counter her depression and the perimenopause.

Prosecutor Andrea Scott-Lynch said that Blake - who has since moved to a village in Suffolk - had become treasurer in 2013.

She opened an internet banking account for the village church, which had only ten parishioners at the time.

It usually collected around £3,500 per year. But, from February 2018, Blake paid in 147 fraudulent cheques from Kier, where she worked as an assistant finance manager, totalling £125,531.05.

The amounts of the cheques varied between £200 and £2,000, and Blake also took £24,000 from church funds - which she has since repaid.

After cashing in the cheques, Blake then transferred the money to her own account and spent it on shopping sites such as Amazon, Estée Lauder, Not On The High Street, Etsy and QVC.

She resisted attempts to add a second signatory to the church account, and prevented the new treasurer from gaining access to the account after she resigned from the PCC in 2019 - he eventually had to resort to the banking ombudsman.

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Blake had also lied to other PCC members when she claimed that Lloyds was charging them for their account, encouraging a switch to Natwest.

Her sole access to the account also caused problems when a £10,000 grant to repair the church roof was not immediately sent to the contractors who were carrying out the work.

Blake was on holiday in Australia at the time, and managed to negotiate an instalment scheme.

Blake, now of Top Green in Denston, near Newmarket, appeared for sentencing having pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by abuse of position.

Defending, Natalie Turner said Blake was of previous good character and had made full admissions.

She had told the police about the fraud on Kier before the company knew about it, has paid back the church, and has offered to repay Kier.

Ms Turner said that Blake had previously been in two abusive relationships and had turned to retail therapy as a coping mechanism.

She added that Blake, who is now married, had been going through the perimenopause and had felt under huge pressure, having experienced bullying at work.

Blake has sent letters of apology to the church, Kier, and the court.

When jailing her, Recorder Lee Harris said: “There was a serious abuse of position by you over a lengthy period of time.”