Nationwide cashier Kelly Kershaw ordered to repay £12,630 after stealing £8,605 from customers

Mixed · 2Kelly Kershaw, 54, a former Nationwide cashier in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, has been ordered to repay £12,630 after stealing from elderly and vulnerable customers to pay for holidays. 1 2 Mixed · 2At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Caernarfon Crown Court, the court heard she had benefited by £13,333.26 from her crimes and held £12,630 in assets. Judge Nicola Jones ordered her to repay the sum within three months or face a further five months in prison. 1 2 Mixed · 2Kershaw admitted five counts of fraud. Prosecutor Elen Owen told the earlier May hearing that the amount which could be shown to have been taken fraudulently was £8,605, while Nationwide reimbursed customers a total of £12,630. 1 2

Mixed · 2She had been transferred to the branch in June 2020, which had a high number of vulnerable customers. She processed cash withdrawals and pocketed some or all of the money, forged signatures, or took customers' cards and handed over only part of a large withdrawal. 1 2 Mixed · 2Victims included an 85-year-old man who had lost some cognitive abilities after a stroke, from whom she stole £6,300, and a 49-year-old man with learning difficulties who lost £1,400. In one instance she logged a £200 withdrawal as £500 and kept the £300 difference. 1 2 Mixed · 2Colleagues grew suspicious of her lifestyle, which included foreign holidays, a personalised BMW convertible and Facebook posts of ski trips, safaris and European getaways. Nationwide launched an internal probe that identified five victims, and she admitted the offences when interviewed by a financial investigator in November 2024 and was arrested. 1 2

Mixed · 2Defence barrister Amy Edwards said Kershaw had a "compulsive spending addiction" at the time and showed genuine remorse. Judge Timothy Petts jailed her in May as a deterrent, saying she systematically stole over 11 months and that she told investigators the victims were "easy targets who wouldn't notice the money going from their accounts". 1 2 Mixed · 2Reports differ on the length of the May sentence: the Daily Mail says 16 months, while the BBC article says 16 years, which sits oddly with the five-month default term and the sums involved. 2 1