A debt collection officer working for the HM Revenue & Customs has pleaded guilty to stealing nearly £85,000 from taxpayers. He was sentenced to two and half years in prison at Hereford Crown Court.
Local paper, the Redditch Advertiser, reported that 44 year-old Geoffrey Eley spent six years visiting debtors and businesses door-to-door, taking cash payments that he then pocketed.
Between 2001 and 2007 Eley stole a total of £84,950, taking sums of up to £28,904 from taxpayers.
It is not known how Eley, a serving HMRC officer of nearly 27 years, spent the money, or whether any of it has been recovered.
Not only did the debt collector trick taxpayers with photocopies of official HMRC receipts, which led debtors to believe that they had settled their debts with HMRC, he also attempted to hide his deceit by crediting the conned taxpayers’ accounts with cheque payments from unconnected third party taxpayers.
The HMRC has said that steps have been taken to make sure that similar abuses of position cannot occur.
Joff Parsons, head of HMRC’s internal governance criminal investigations, said that Eley abused his position of trust for personal gain, adding: “We will relentlessly pursue anyone who attempts to steal from public funds and they will face criminal sanctions.”
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