A CONWOMAN facing jail for swindling £25,000 from a York company after previously stealing £120,000 from three Lancashire firms has gone on the run.

Louise Winskill, 35, failed to turn up at York Crown Court to be sentenced yesterday, after a fake call to her solicitors claiming she had been rushed into hospital.

But defence barrister Simon Reevell told the hearing that Winskill, who has admitted 32 charges of deception and one of getting a job by concealing her criminal convictions, could not be traced.

He told the court Winskill's solicitors in Northamptonshire, where she had been given a secret bail address, received a telephone call from a woman purporting to be a nurse.

The "nurse" said Winskill had been rushed into hospital and would not be fit to attend court.

But the solicitor checked the caller's number by dialling 1471 and was put through to a chip shop.

A warrant has been issued for Winskill's arrest, and she is still set to be brought back to York to be sentenced.

Ex-con Winskill had been out of Askham Grange Prison for just over a year when she gained a job as personal assistant to the managing director of York Business Park, Susanne Gilbert. The mum-of-two charmed company bosses into believing she was a hardworking secretary wanting to improve her career.

But she hid her previous convictions for stealing £120,000 from three former employers - Medical and Industrial Manufacturing Ltd and Poplars Contractors, both in her former home town of Dukinfield, and Pinnacle Sheet Metal, in Oldham.

Winskill, formerly known as Simons, was jailed for 30 months for the offences in 1999, and was brought back before the courts just six months later for trying to hide £41,000 of the money she had stolen.

When she was released from Askham Grange in 2001 she worked at the University of York. She met and married Philip Winskill, a bookbinder, and lived with him in Thief Lane, York.

She gained a job at York Science Park, a company which provides office space for enterprising businesses, and was able to steal a total of £25,618 by signing off cheques to phoney companies.

Nick Worsley, prosecuting when Winskill last appeared at court on September 12, said she used the money to pay off credit card and other bills, or to fund child care.

Mr Reevell said she was likely to receive a prison sentence, which would mean her children being taken away from her.

She had also been due to faces charges at Wellingborough Magistrates Court, Northants, for obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception from another company, but the case has been discontinued.

Updated: 10:15 Friday, October 14, 2005