A North Yorkshire travel agent has been jailed for his part in an elaborate invoice "sting" which funded lavish holidays for a company director and his secretary.

Michael Bartram, 52, who owns Selby's Abbey Travel, admitted at Hull Crown Court almost one thousand false accounting offences.

Bartram, of West Lane, Burn, created false invoices over six years, which went into a slush fund to pay for exotic holidays for Trevor Beacock, managing director of Snaith firm Senior Thermal Engineering Limited (Stel), and his secretary Linda Berry.

Beacock, 58, from Pontefract, was jailed for four years and Berry, 45, of Copper Beech Drive, Whitley Bridge, for three-and-half years after pleading guilty to fraud.

The court heard how Beacock and Berry arranged a personal account at Abbey Travel, into which they deposited the proceeds of fictitious or inflated travel invoices for themselves and unwitting company employees.

The £250,000 slush fund financed exotic holidays, foreign currency and weekend breaks, said prosecutor Andrew Robertson.

Beacock said he knew about the fund but had no idea how extensively Berry had abused it. Bartram, who claimed he thought the expenses paid into the personal account were legitimate, was jailed for a year. He was also ordered to pay £23,000 compensation to Stel and £10,000 towards the £234,000 prosecution costs.

Beacock was ordered to pay £50,000 costs and £80,000 compensation to Stel, and Berry was ordered to pay £44,000 to her former company.

Two others, James Owen, 67, of Kellington Court, Eggborough, and James Burrows, 64, of Lincoln, admitted false accounting through supplying false invoices. They were each given four-month prison sentences, suspended for a year.

Burrows was ordered to pay £3,000 court costs and Owen £1,000.

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