Fraudster who stole £170,000 from firm for cocaine-fuelled weekend is jailed again for stealing £90,000 from bosses
15 May 2024, 15:04 | Updated: 15 May 2024, 15:38
A serial conman who once splashed £170,000 of stolen money on a cocaine-fuelled weekend of sex with prostitutes has been put back in jail for stealing £90,000 from new employees.
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Darren Carvill, 43, from Tovil, defrauded new bosses at a Holiday Inn and a travel agency to ‘make himself feel better’, a court heard.
Carvill, who changed his name by deed poll after his release, was previously jailed for two-and-a-half-years in 2019 for stealing more than £260,000 from a car servicing company, Mr Clutch.
He spent the majority of the cash, around £170,000, on a single weekend of partying, where he was seen taking cocaine in a London club with as many as 10 female escorts.
Carvill changed his name to Medhurst after his release from prison and went on to secure a job as a finance assistant at the travel agency 360 Travel in Sevenoaks.
He stole £76,754 from 360 Travel between July and August 2022, which he paid directly into his bank accounts, a court heard.
After the travel firm grew suspicious, Carvill was placed under investigation by the police, at which point he found a new job at a Holiday Inn in Rochester.
Prosecutor Stacey-Lee Holland said Carvill would transfer thousands of pounds to his bank accounts and mark them as ‘expenses’ while working at the travel agency.
It was only after Carvill began acting strangely and stopped showing up to work that the fraudulent behaviour was discovered.
Ms Holland told the court that Carvill had told colleagues his mum had dementia and he was struggling. This later became more frequent, which is when the payments were noticed.
After he was confronted, he said he ‘had no choice’ and later admitted to taking the funds at a voluntary police interview.
He also said he had spent the funds and there was none left.
“He said he had been down at the time and this was a way to make himself feel better,” Ms Holland added.
After he switched jobs to the Holiday Inn, bosses soon discovered the fraudster’s criminal history and placed him on suspension, pending a scheduled meeting on April 28 last year to allow him to prove his identity.
He reportedly stole £13,000 from the hotel chain - the same day he was scheduled to have a meeting with managers who had discovered his criminal history.
Carvill had stolen the money to “make himself feel better”, the sentencing judge heard.
None of the stolen money has been recovered, the MailOnline reports.
Ms Holland said of his second job: “He entered the office, completed a refund of £9,784 and paid it onto his bank card. He did that almost immediately on having entered work that day.
“He then went into the cash office, opened the safes and removed £3,261 in cash, hiding it in his jacket.
“He was blatant in his actions because, as he left, he lifted his jacket, showing the cash, and said to a colleague 'See you in the morning' and left the hotel.”
A month later, Carvill was discovered lying face-down, intoxicated, at the side of a road in Maidstone, at which point he was arrested by police.
In court, the accountant denied receiving the £9,784 refund amount.
His defence lawyer, Katie Bacon, said the fraudster is “not someone who continually seeks to offend but someone who has taken the wrong path at a time of difficulty”.
Ms Bacon said his latest series of offences happened as he was grieving his father, and also after he had been evicted from his family home following the death of his mother.
She said Carvill had “deep remorse” over his actions and that he had taken the money from Holiday Inn in a moment of “panic” when he faced losing his job.
Judge Julian Smith jailed Carvill for three years, as he said: “You are not a victim. Others are the victims. Your name carries that stain of dishonesty by what you did. By not declaring it is misrepresenting your background. You may want to wipe the slate clean. You can't do that by not declaring.”
At a previous hearing at Maidstone Crown Court in 2019, the court heard how he had filed bogus payments to himself after claiming he was bullied at work.
In total, he has 57 previous convictions, 52 of which were fraud or fraud-related offences.
