With just £6.59 sitting in her bank account, Sarah Jane Lee was somewhat surprised when she went to make a £10 withdrawal – and found she had £135,000 to spend.
So, not one to question her good fortune, Miss Lee, a jobless single mother, made hay - blowing almost all of the cash in less than three weeks by living the high life - buying luxury goods and booking a holiday to Disneyworld in Florida.
But, after it emerged that the Abbey had transferred the money to her by mistake, she is now facing jail for theft.
Her spree began last November after an error at the Abbey branch in Blackburn, Lancs.
Miss Lee, 19, said: “When I realised how much money was in my account I felt numb, sick. All it said on the statement was 'account adjustment’ and I didn’t touch it for a day.
“The day after I went in to the bank and asked them what it meant but they couldn’t tell me. They just asked me if I wanted to open a savings account.”
Unperturbed, she began to spend the cash. She booked a £10,000 holiday to Florida and spent almost £33,000, regularly visiting the sex shop chains Simply Pleasure and Ann Summers.
She filled her home in Blackburn with luxury goods. She is also said to have arranged banker's drafts for £40,000 for two people and written a cheque for £17,000 to a third.
And then the bank discovered its mistake.
Officials froze Miss Lee’s account before she could go to Florida with her nine-month-old daughter, Amy-Jane, and other relatives. She knew it was time to hand herself in.
“I walked into the bank and waited for the coppers,” she said. “I was searched in the middle of Abbey. I felt humiliated.”
She admitted retaining wrongful credit and 11 specimen charges of theft, however sentencing was adjourned today at Preston Crown Court.
She will be sentenced after four other people - Amanda Moorcroft, 24, her sister, David Moorcroft, 42, Winston Moorcroft, 38, and Mark Utley, 26 - have been dealt with by the courts. They all face charges of theft and handling stolen goods.
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