No immediate prison term for Telford woman in backhander case
A Telford woman who splashed out about £40,000 on her lavish wedding and honeymoon from cash paid to her corrupt husband as backhanders, has escaped an immediate jail sentence.
A Telford woman who splashed out about £40,000 on her lavish wedding and honeymoon from cash paid to her corrupt husband as backhanders, has escaped an immediate jail sentence.
Sarah Anne Kent left Warwick Crown Court yesterday after being given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years. Judge Robert Orme had adjourned sentence on Kent, 36, to consider reports linked to the future of her son should she be sent straight to prison.
At court yesterday Judge Orme also told Kent she must complete 200 hours work in the community and that she would be under supervision for a year.
He said that he would consider a progress report in six months and that a confiscation application had been made under the Proceeds of Crime Act and would be heard later in the year.
Kent had admitted a charge of using monies obtained by her husband Paul Kent from his criminal activity - including the cost of the couple's wedding at Tone Dale House in Somerset and an exotic Oriental honeymoon cruise in July 2005.
During a hearing at Birmingham Crown Court last month Judge Orme was told that 46-year-old Paul Kent had also bought his wife a £27,000 Audi TT convertible, complete with the personalised registration SAK 800, as a wedding present.
The Kents, who had shared a £300,000 house in Woodspring Grove, Muxton, met in June 2003, when Paul Kent was appointed as adult learning strategy manager for the Shropshire Learning & Skills Council in Central Park, Telford, where his bride-to-be, then Sarah Emberton, had worked.
At the hearing Paul Kent, who became director of adult training for the Shropshire LSC, was said to have been at the hub of the corruption and was jailed for four-and-half-years.
He had admitted 11 charges of receiving a total of £270,000 in corrupt payments and the series of "bungs" had secured £1.3 million worth of lucrative LSC national skills and training contracts for his friends and associates.
A whistleblower had alerted LSC bosses to the corruption. Kent resigned his post in September 2005, as the Serious Fraud Office and West Mercia police launched an investigation.
At the hearing last month John Ford, 57, formerly of Quarry Place, Shrewsbury, and Silinder Singh Sidhu, 44, of Walsall, were jailed for making payments to Paul Kent to secure contracts. Rebecca Hoyle, 45, of Stroud, who made three corrupt payments was given a suspended prison sentence.