A MAN who used money he’d fraudulently stolen to buy pedigree kittens and spend on his lavish lifestyle, has been jailed.


After fraudulently taking more than £369,000 from the company he worked for, Matthew Farrimond (31/10/1976) of Buckshaw Village, Chorley was sentenced on June 25 to four years in prison for a string of fraud offences.

Farrimond was working at a construction company in Westhoughton as their Finance Manager and had been in this senior role for a number of years.

In November 2016, two cheque stubs were found showing large payments to charities, which were not planned.

Further investigation found that this money had been paid into Farrimond’s account, rather than the charity on the cheque.

Farrmiond had made nine payments from the business account into his own funds and created false invoices to conceal this from the company.

He fraudulently paid £369,000 from the business account into his funds, some of which he used to buy a house.

With the remainder of the money, Farrimond bought pedigree kittens, booked holidays and lived out a lavish lifestyle filled with days out and drinks.

On 10 January 2017 after the scale of his fraudulent activity became clear, Farrimond was arrested and pleaded guilty to 12 counts of fraud by false representation and 1 count of money laundering at an earlier hearing.

Police Constable Kate Riley of GMP’s Economic Crime Section, said: “Farrimond’s role was to safeguard the financial interests of the company he worked for, but he was the biggest threat to their hard-earned funds.

“That he would deceitfully take money from the company he worked for is one thing, but he should be ashamed of the fact he hid his fraud by pretending to pay charities.

“Even though he managed to take funds for a number of months, today’s sentence proves that you cannot get away with stealing money that doesn’t belong to you.

“Our specialist officers work tirelessly to uncover fraudulent activity and bring those responsible, like Farrimond, to justice.”