Woman jailed for 10 years after 'Olympian scale' £500,000 fraud against high street retailers

Gloucester Crown Court heard Kaur defrauded the likes of Boots, Debenhams, John Lewis, Monsoon, House of Fraser and TK Maxx more than a thousand times between July 2015 and February 2019.

The defendant, 52, has a long history of offending dating back to when she was a teenager, made it her full-time career to travel all over the country to carry out her deceptions.

The court heard Kaur was seen on CCTV entering stores, taking items from the shelves and taking them to the tills as if they had been previously purchased.

Close examination of her accounts confirmed the pattern of purchases and refunds and that the same process seen on the CCTV was being repeated on hundreds of occasions.

Gareth Weetman, prosecuting, said: "This defendant made it a full-time and lucrative endeavour. This was inherently sophisticated offending with sustained planning, carried out over a five-year period with a large number of victims."

The largest single fraud was committed against Boots and an examination of her many bank and credit card accounts showed she had visited stores in Cheltenham, Malvern, Solihull, Droitwich, Kidderminster, Dudley and Smethwick.

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Kaur received £60,787.09 in refunds from the high street shop despite having only spent £5,172.73 with the retailer during that same period. She also received £42,853.65 in refunds from Debenhams despite having only spent £3,681.33 during a four-year period.

Kaur also got £33,131.61 in refunds from John Lewis stores, including in Milton Keynes, Watford, Chester, Cardiff, Chichester and Nottingham, having only spent £5,290.36 between August 2015 and December 2018.

She also visited several Monsoon stores in the West Midlands, South Wales and Thames Valley where she claimed £23,000 more in refunds than in payments to the stores.

House of Fraser stores in Bristol, Cardiff, Bath, Reading, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Swindon, Solihull, Worcester and Exeter fell victim to Kaur, where she spent £2,800 and claimed refunds of £23,000. She also defrauded Homesense of £18,000, TK Maxx of some £14,500 and Homebase of £3,200.

John Cooper KC, defending, said delays in the case should not be held against the defendant who had been suffering in prison with her mental health. “She has been a victim of bullying and racial abuse – it has not been easy,” he said.

"It has been extremely difficult for her and will continue to be extremely difficult for her. She has not found it easy."

She had refused to leave Eastwood Park Prison and was instead sentenced in her absence.

Judge Ian Lawrie KC, the Recorder of Gloucester, imposed a total sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for crimes that were "stubbornly persistent and on a near-Olympian scale."

He said: "You indulged in a veritable tsunami of dishonesty and deceit on a varied assortment of victims. The majority of that dishonesty and deceit was carried out over a significant range of retail outlets covering an extensive geographical area from north to south, Warrington to Plymouth, and from east to west, London Colney to Swansea.

“There seems to have been no limit to your offending, all of which was conducted with resolute persistence, unburdened by restraint or inhibition.

“The scale of the offending was on a near-industrial scale. The overall value of the offending has been valued at £500,000.

“The collective scale and gravity of these offences means the court is left with no alternative option but to impose a significant term of custody.”