A FRAUDULENT accountant who stole tens of thousands of pounds from former employers must sell her home to partly compensate the aggrieved companies.

Corina Elaine Heslop, also known by her maiden name of Smith, was jailed for five years at Durham Crown Court in September 2012.

It followed a series of convictions for theft, fraud and benefit fraud at the court last year, which ended with the previously highly trusted book-keeper being labelled “arrogant and haughty” by the sentencing judge.

Her actions were said to have caused financial problems for the companies who fell for her plausible and confident manner.

She took money while accounts manager for both British American Railways, which oversees the Weardale Railway, in County Durham, and Darlington classic car company Simon J Robinson, who she joined using her maiden name, while on bail for the then alleged crimes with her previous employer.

Heslop also ‘stole’ from the public purse, as she illegally gained £70,000 in income support and housing benefit after claiming to be a single mother renting her home in Bishop Auckland for nine years.

She was actually living with her ‘landlord’, her partner at the time and now husband, James Heslop, with whom she jointly owned the property.

But it is that home, in Rookhope Grove, which will be sold to provide some element of compensation for the victims of her fraudulent activities.

Heslop, now 43, was brought back before the court for a Proceeds of Crime confiscation hearing today (Thursday May 30).

Although scheduled to last half-a-day, Nadim Bashir, for the prosecution, said all the parties have now resolved matters and come to agreement on the final figures in the case.

Recorder Graham Hyland, therefore, declared that Heslop had benefited by £195,405, but her realisable assets were said to be only £19,999, from her share of the estimated saleable value of the home.

She was given six months to make that payment or risk a 12-month prison sentence in default.

As it is, her barrister, Philip Standfirst, told the court that Heslop’s earliest release date, on licence, will not be until Christmas, 2014.