A FORMER Girl Guides commissioner for Oxfordshire last Friday began a jail term for defrauding her own business out of almost £180,000.

Anthea Madden wrote 137 cheques for her own benefit over a five-year period while she worked as a director for the Useful Loft Company.

The 61-year-old defendant, of Kennington, swindled the business out of £179,574.19 between 2003 and 2008.

The mother-of-four had set up the Woodstock-based loft conversion company with architect Peter Harvey in 1997 and had acted as the firm’s secretary.

Tim Boswell, prosecuting at Oxford Crown Court, said Madden wrote cheques to herself using the company cheque book and to conceal what she had done, she wrote the names of suppliers in the cheque stubs.

Mr Boswell said Madden had also set up, and increased to £20,000, a bank overdraft for the company without Mr Harvey’s knowledge.

In October 2008, supplier Pathway Joiners chased the business for a £2,000 payment, although the cheque stub suggested it had already been paid.

When Mr Harvey asked Lloyds Bank for a copy of the cheque, it showed the payee as ‘A Madden’.

In total, Madden wrote 83 cheques to herself, 27 to pay her credit-card bills, 14 to her relatives — who were unaware of any wrongdoing — one to Amber Windows for double glazing and 13 to catalogue company Great Universal, from which she bought an iPod, a lawn mower and a pushchair, among other items.

The defendant, who left the company by mutual consent and moved to Spain, earlier admitted seven counts of false accounting.

Madden, whose 79-year-old husband has dementia, moved to a warmer climate to aid her arthritis, the court heard.

She had previously been “district commissioner for Oxford for the Brownies and Girl Guides”, the court was told.

Judge Anthony King, who jailed her for 30 months, said: “You were in a position of trust.

“Your colleague, and no doubt your friend and fellow director, trusted you. You were in business together with him and he was the one generating the business and you were the one responsible for the safekeeping and proper preparation of books and custody of money entered. For five years you abused that trust. Though he had done no harm to you, you deceived him for five years.”