A FINANCE boss who fiddled a kitchen company's accounts to the tune of almost £3million has been put behind bars for three years and four months.

Shelagh Smith, 67, worked for Glen Dimplex Home Appliances (GDHA) in Whiston for more than three decades, the last 26 years as purchase ledger supervisor responsible for processing and paying suppliers.

Unbeknown to her Stoney Lane employers, between June 2005 and October 2010, she falsified company records and in a total of 163 transactions she obtained a staggering £2.8m.

Her husband Roy Smith, 69, was jailed for 27 months, and their daughter Karen Lewis, 47, for 21 months, for using criminal property following guilty pleas, after it was shown that they had knowingly benefitted from the thefts.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the Smiths, formerly of St Helens Road in Prescot, and Lewis all now live in Anglesey.

Smith used her daughter's bank account and two joint ones with her husband in which more than £2.6m was hidden, with the rest in her own account, said David McLachlan, prosecuting.

The stolen money was spent on properties for her daughter, son and grandchildren in Prescot, Haydock, Anglesey and Ireland, cars, a £10,000 woodburning stove, holidays and a boat.

Judge Norman Wright she had claimed it began at a time of stress due to difficulties in her daughter's life and a decline in her husband's health. But, he added: "The explanation is simply one of greed".

Smith pleaded guilty to false accounting and her husband, who was in a wheelchair, pleaded guilty to money laundering, as did Lewis, who broke down in tears expressing concern about her 16-year-old daughter.

Running alongside the criminal investigation was a civil action brought by GDHA in the High Court in London. Following those proceedings all three parties were stripped of the properties they had purchased and the money returned to those it was stolen from.

DI Simon Vaughan of Merseyside Police said: "Shelagh Smith had worked for the company for more than 30 years, holding a position of trust and having responsibility for large sums of money.

"She was highly regarded by her peers and supervisors and selfishly abused this trust and her position in order to enrich herself and her family at the company's expense.

"Today Shelagh Smith and those who helped her to spend the stolen money have been punished by the courts."