By Awaal Gata
Abuja
A Nigerian accountant and pastor based in the United Kingdom, Samuel Kayode, has been sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing £4.1million.
Woolwich Crown Court in South London sentenced Kayode, yesterday for defrauding Haberdashers’ Aske’s state schools.
The accountant, who earned £57, 000 per annum, was convicted after being found guilty of £150,000 theft and £3.95million fraud.
Out of the £4.1million, only £800, 000 was recovered from him, the prosecuting counsel told CTV in an interview monitored by Blueprint in Abuja.
Described as “dishonest” and “greedy”, the court heard how Kayode lavished the stolen money on four women, his wife, Grace; a second ‘wife’ in Nigeria, Olubunmi Halima; and two other women in the UK.
British prosecutor, James Thacker, said he also bought luxury cars including a Mercedes, an Audi TT sports car and an Infiniti car with the money.
The court also heard how for seven years the convict looted the accounts of Haberdashers. He was said to be secretive, locking himself in his office to work late, “after arriving in a Mercedes, wearing £500 Gucci shoes and carrying a Louis Vuitton briefcase.”
Thacker said the father of four from Ilford, East London, was too arrogant to admit his guilt even after he was caught red-handed in 2012.
Kayode tried to blame the crime on his late wife and a junior colleague, saying that they conspired to tarnish his image by transferring the money to his account in revenge for his adultery.
His crime was exposed when a school cleaner stumbled across some of Kayode’s documents. The cleaner was said to make an anonymous call to the schools’ Chief Finance Officer, Yvonne Smithers.
The accounts manager started work at Haberdashers’ in 1997.
