A COUPLE from York enjoyed holidays, entertainment and hotel stays costing tens of thousands of pounds, funded by dishonesty against the woman’s employers Asda, a court has heard.

Jennifer Ward worked in accounts for the supermarket giant and used her position to steal cash and help herself to gift vouchers which could later be swapped for cash, Nadim Bashir, prosecuting, told a Leeds Crown Court trial.

Over a six-year period, she and her partner Alistair Lobban “enjoyed the fruits of her ill-gotten gains in terms of money, property, goods and services”, he claimed.

They enjoyed a lifestyle way beyond their declared means, including £98,000 spent on entertainment and travel, the jury heard.

Between 2004 and 2010 their spending was “colossal”, topping £320,000, which was more than 20 times their annual declared household net income.

That included £157,000 on Ward’s credit cards and, from 2007, a regular time-share week at a holiday cottage in the Scilly Isles.

When police arrested Ward at Coppins Farm House in Wigginton Road, York, the home she shared with Lobban, they found Asda gift vouchers worth more than £200,000, as well as £30,000 in cash, said Mr Bashir.

The jury was told Ward has admitted theft and possessing or having control of the gift vouchers for use in fraud.

Lobban, 52, is on trial. He denies entering into or becoming concerned in a money-laundering arrangement.

Mr Bashir said Ward’s net declared income over the six years was about £70,000, while Lobban had declared about £6,000 for the same period.

But financial investigations showed cash spending over the same period of £66,000, as well as the spending on credit cards.

The couple were about to go on a £4,000 Caribbean cruise, had Ward not been arrested in 2010.

Their £98,000 expenditure on entertainment and travel included £3,700 on theatre tickets and £52,000 on hotels.

Lobban told police Ward looked after their finances because she was better with money than he was.

He said he had no reason to be suspicious about their lifestyle, believing she was a good saver.

He maintained he knew nothing of his partner’s dishonesty and denied knowing about the vouchers.

Mr Bashir told the jury it was the Crown’s case Lobban must have known or at least suspected they were living on the proceeds of her theft from Asda from “the sheer level of their joint expenditure”.

He said: “Ask yourself this question – how could he not have known?

“They were not just living above their means; they were living by a level of expenditure as if money was going out of fashion.”

The trial continues.