State of prisons sees woman freed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/6984149.stm

Version 0 of 1.

An accountant who tried to blackmail £25,000 from her former boss has escaped prison due to the state of NI's female prison system, a judge has said.

Suspending Tracey Angove's nine month jail term for three years, Randal McKay QC said he had taken the "incredible" facilities on offer into consideration.

Newry Crown Court heard Mr McKay also noted her clear criminal record.

Angove, 38, from Springfields in Banbridge, was convicted last June of one charge of blackmailing £25,000.

This was from her then boss, the managing director of All Things Nice, Vivian Connolly, on dates between November 2004 and January 2005.

During a week-long trial the jury heard that Angove, who maintains her innocence, sent five letters to Mr Connolly demanding he pay her £25,000 or she would report him to the Inland Revenue and other financial institutions for investigation.

She had been Mr Connolly's accountant at Connolly Fancy Goods Ltd, which trades as All Things Nice furniture, with outlets in Moy, Dundalk and Belfast.

'Guarantees my silence'

In the first letter Angove threatened that payment of the money "guarantees my silence about all that I know about you, your business, your business practices and acquaintances".

The jury were told that although there was no forensic evidence linking Angove to the letters, her home computer had been seized and examined by the specialist computer crime team who managed to uncover the fact that two of the letters had been written on her machine.

Handing down the suspended jail term, Judge McKay told Angove she had been motivated "by greed, not by need" and that the courts had always taken a serious view of blackmail as it is regarded as "loathsome and contemptuous".

However, he added that the "poisonous letters" were far from the classic examples of blackmail in Northern Ireland and although her offences deserved a prison sentence, "I think you just about fall on the right side for me to suspend any term of imprisonment".

The judge also fined Angove £1,000, allowing her 16 weeks to pay.