A model who spent most of the £10,000 she stole from a venture capital company on a cocaine and alcohol binge in a desperate bid to win friends has been spared jail.

Why? For the same reason no one is investigating Steven Purcell’s friends? Have we a moratorium on taking the effects of cocaine consumption seriously now that we have Mephedrone to think about?

After splitting from her boyfriend Courtney McMath, 25, made out company cheques to herself while employed as a temp at venture capitalists Delin Capital UK.

Why? Did the cheques keep her company at might? Apart from the emotional sob story that the courts seem very keen on these days, what relevance has her love life to her honesty?

She was eventually sacked by the firm for constantly taking days off with hangovers and weeks later her crime spree was discovered.

That’ll be them there cocaine and alcohol binges.

McMath, pleaded guilty to stealing £10,746 from Delin between November and December last year.

Busy girl in a month, she must have gone into work on occasion then.

A judge at Southwark crown court ordered her to carry out a 12-month community order, plus 200 hours unpaid work, and pay £250 costs.

A ridiculously mild sentence compared to the six months given to Nick Hogan for being unable to pay a crushing £7,600 in costs. Am I to understand that stealing from your employer is less reprehensible than not being on the premises to prevent a customer from smoking? To say nothing of being £7,350 cheaper to bring the prosecution?

McMath, of Fulham, told police she moved to the UK two years ago to settle down with her boyfriend, but after the split found herself homeless and friendless. “She said she also blew the cash on meals and taxis entertaining new friends,” said Mr Rimmer. “She said she was trying to buy new friends with stolen money.”

She wasn’t that friendless then.

Judith Benson, defending, told the court: “McMath split up with her boyfriend and that led to the destruction of her entire social life. She used cocaine and was binge-drinking.

She just suddenly decided to take up cocaine and binge drinking? Or was the cocaine and binge drinking the reason she split up with the boyfriend? She had no friends remember, someone must have introduced her to cocaine.

Sentencing, Mr Recorder Jeremy Donne QC, told McMath: “You took a fairly substantial sum of money over three or four weeks on a number of occasions. This was an unsophisticated scheme, cheques were made out to yourself, discovery was inevitable.

For unsophisticated scheme read thick as two short planks.

“You are a young woman starting out in life and it would be a shame if your foolish conduct blighted your life for several years.”

It would be a shame, indeed it would, but that is the accepted penalty for taking £10,746 in a month from the firm who were also presumably paying you a decent wage, and at the same time not even having the decency to turn up to work regularly or in a fit state to do anything other than write yourself another cheque. It does tend to blight your life – that is what puts other people off doing the same thing.

None of the money was recovered.

That is £10,746 in venture capital that won’t be given to someone else prepared to work hard to establish a new business and help the economy recover.

Great message you are sending out there, Mr Recorder Donne. Not unlike the message the Weegies are getting up North.

Nothing wrong with taking cocaine you just need a decent sob story to go with it.

Unlike smoking.

1
Saul April 8, 2010 at 18:34

This kind of thing gets right up my nose…

2
Gloria Smudd April 8, 2010 at 19:10

Not a topic to be snorted at, I’d have thought, Saul…

3
Saul April 8, 2010 at 19:26

Just the one line Glo?

4
Gloria Smudd April 8, 2010 at 19:53

Cut it out!

5
Saul April 8, 2010 at 20:05

Just a bit of Craic…

6
Gloria Smudd April 8, 2010 at 20:39

Snow joke, Saul…

7
Saul April 8, 2010 at 20:51

Okay, that’s a wrap….

8
2Mac April 8, 2010 at 22:02

Saul / Gloria

Are you guys on some kind of bender of one liners?

9
English Viking April 8, 2010 at 22:14

Who nose where this might lead?

10
Saul April 8, 2010 at 22:18

This septummed Isle…

11
Kowalski April 8, 2010 at 23:51

Ooooooh, those poor venture capitalists, won’t somebody please think of the children

12
Elby The Beserk April 9, 2010 at 05:32

I think Mr. Doherty has now racked up 21 Class A convictions.

Time in jail?

13
Gloria Smudd April 9, 2010 at 08:14

2Mac – Saul puts down a oneliner just to tempt me and my resistance folds. Before I know it, we’ve done 20 oneliners or so between us. Even when I think there can’t be a single oneliner left, he finds another one from somewhere.

14
Gloria Smudd April 9, 2010 at 08:23

Last night, for example, he came out with the “It’s a wrap” comment and I couldn’t think of a reply. I felt a right charlie…

15
patently April 9, 2010 at 15:20

A ridiculously mild sentence compared to the six months given to Nick Hogan for being unable to pay a crushing £7,600 in costs.

There is a crucial difference. She took the money from a private enterprise. He owed the money to the State.