A woman stole £1.1 million from a leading private hospital in London which her husband used to buy a villa in Turkey and lavish home improvements to their home in Cornwall, a court heard.
Andrew Baker, 64, installed spectacular waterfalls, fountains and an aviary of exotic birds in the grounds of their home with the money, it is alleged.
The cash had been stolen by his wife, Anne, 61, during a “breath-taking” 13-year fraud while she worked as a radiology department manager at the Princess Grace Hospital in Marylebone. She has admitted false accounting and will be sentenced at the end of her husband’s trial.
Using her maiden name of Fitzpatrick, she forged a string of 131 invoices authorising payment to fictional radiologist Dr Baker for “consultancy services.”
Southwark crown court heard that Mr Baker was a “key beneficiary” of the stolen cash and also transferred £85,000 into two Turkish bank accounts and kept £25,000 in a gun cupboard at his home.
He claims he had no idea about his wife’s wrongdoing. But the couple’s genuine income was “dwarfed” by their dishonest earnings, prosecutor Hugh Forgan told the jury. Mrs Baker’s fraud lasted from November 1998 until January 2012.
Mr Forgan said: “Often Andrew Baker was the beneficiary of that money, sometimes via direct transfers to his bank account, other times the money was being spent on improving the matrimonial home. The illegal income was many, many more times the legitimate income and he must have known this. He was living off her (Anne’s) income, which was mainly dishonest.”
Mr Baker claims he had no idea of his wife’s wrongdoing. Mrs Baker, who retired from the hospital in March 2012, authorised a bogus invoice around once a month, with annual amounts ranging from £80,000 to £179,000, jurors heard.
The villa in Bodrum, Turkey, was bought in September 2007, a further £88,882 was spent on building work at the couple’s home in Launceston with more cash ploughed into landscaping projects. “Mr Baker turned the house in Cornwall into something rather splendid,” Mr Forgan added.
He was arrested in August last year and told police the allegations were “crazy.” He claimed he used cash from the sale of a property in Putney, and money his wife received as a bonus to fund his extravagant purchases.
He denies two counts of money laundering. The trial continues.
