Prescott accountant sent to jail

An accountant, well not actually a qualified accountant but a man claiming he was one, has been sent to jail over defrauding John Prescott's department for £867,200.

The gambling addict used a fictitious firm and imaginary colleague to siphon off up to £133,000 at a time.

He had only passed one of the 14 exams needed to become a qualified accountant, but nobody would have noticed a little thing like being massively overpaid and unable to do your job in a place like Whitehall.