A NEWPORT fraudster who filled in bogus forms at the loan companies where she worked to pocket almost £9,000 was jailed.

Cardiff Crown Court heard how Natasha Hugh, 40, would make up names and assign them to addresses around Newport, asking for loans of between £100 and £500 between February 2007 and May 2008.

On the loan forms, she would say the necessary identification had been seen enabling the cash to be released.

Hugh, of Tregare Street, first worked for the Morses Club where she used this practice, combined with bogus addresses and National Insurance numbers.

When suspicions were aroused by management due to a lack of repayments, Hugh was summoned to a meeting but did not showup and was sacked.

By March 2008, she had started working for Provident Financial and prosecutor Matthew Roberts said within two months there were discrepancies in her accounts relating to nine suspicious loans, prompting another meeting with her seniors.

This time she went, but during the meeting she asked if she could have a cigarette break. She left and never returned, so the police were informed. The loans she had taken out totalled £8,800.

At first, she maintained the loans taken out were legitimate and originally entered not guilty pleas to all counts, before changing her mind and entering guilty pleas to six counts of obtaining property by deception and 17 counts of fraud by abuse of position.

Defending, James Tucker said these offences were “triggered by a personal calamity in her life which brought about financial meltdown”

and was not money used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Mr Tucker said Hugh acknowledged the impact of her offending, had expressed remorse and would attempt to repay the money.

Judge Stephen Hopkins QC jailed Hugh for six months for each count, to run concurrently, and ordered a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing in September.