A bookkeper who stole £1.4m from a construction firm over 11 years and used the money to buy a Harley Davidson for her husband has been ordered to pay back £250,000.

Deborah Thorlby-Hall, 54, spent the cash on luxury holidays including a cruise and a trip to Barbados, a Range Rover Evoque and home improvements after using her position to transfer funds to her personal Halifax bank account.

Thorlby-Hall then created false invoices to give the impression the transfers were legitimate, describing them as 'payments to large suppliers'. 

Bosses at SDE Group based in Stanfree and Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbys. said the amount she had now been ordered to return was 'nothing' compared to what she had stolen and the impact she had.  

Vicky Mee, current finance director for the firm, said Thorlby-Hall was 'never seen in the same outfit twice' and regularly had parcels delivered to the office but staff assumed her husband, who was a builder, was 'doing well for himself'.

She told the Daily Mail: 'It's a family business, she had worked for the company for many years, firstly under a qualified account and then when she left she said that she was confident to do the role and they trusted her.

'They put a lot of trust and they were all friends and it feels like a real betrayal. The value they are going to get back is nothing like what she stole.

'It was so personal and she had been doing it for so many years - the directors and shareholders even went to her wedding.

'She was drip feeding and made it hard to find, she knew what she was doing.'

Derby Crown Court heard Thorlby-Hall started stealing from the construction firm in 2008, having been taken on as an accounts assistant three years earlier.

The court heard that when she started stealing she had been in charge of finances for 18 months by which time she 'knew the system inside out' and had overall control of the access to the accounts package. 

The court heard how her grip on finances at the firm was strengthened when its finance director left and she was given the role, regularly attending directors' meetings. 

The former care worker was 'living a lavish lifestyle' far beyond her means. 

She splashed out on a Harley Davidson for her husband and spent £27,000 on the Postcode Lottery, winning £183,000, splurged £28,000 on Amazon and £87,000 at Next and gifted over £240,000 to her husband and son.

Her fraud was uncovered when external accountants were unable to reconcile Thorlby-Hall's books with bank statements.

She had started working for the firm when it was still relatively small, the court heard.  Over the years, turnover increased significantly but 'profitability was not rising accordingly', the external accountants discovered.

The court heard that when Thorlby-Hall was interviewed in 2019 she tried to blame on the external accountant – who was herself arrested and interviewed by police.

While a company probe into its accounts continued in 2019 Thorlby-Hall went off sick with stress and never returned, however she later attended the office on a Sunday to clear her desk, where she accessed the company accounts – making one final transfer to herself of over £7,000.

She was found guilty after a trial of fraud by abuse of position and false accounting and jailed for six years in October 2024.

Thorlby-Hall, formerly of Worksop has now been ordered to pay back some of the money or face further time in prison after being handed a Confiscation Order totalling £256,805 at Derby Crown Court on Monday.

She will have three months to pay back the money which will be returned to the victim.

Prosecutors who secured the confiscation order said they had identified more than £250,000 of assets that are available and can be liquidated.

Luke Clements of the Crown Prosecution Service said: 'Deborah Thorlby-Hall started stealing from her employer in 2008 and continued her crimes for over a decade.

'She abused her position and worked hard to ensure she wasn't discovered, while frittering away the stolen money on holidays, luxury vehicles, and gambling.

'We have ensured that she cannot continue to benefit from her crimes and that all her available assets can be rightly returned to the victim.'