Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe BOURNEMOUTH, England, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A British woman who stole $628,277 from her employer over the course of seven years expected to die of cancer before she got caught, a court heard. Bournemouth Crown Court heard Shirley Player, 61, admitted to transferring the funds to personal accounts while working for Allen and Bath estate agents and cooking the books to cover her tracks. Advertisement Prosecutor Caroline Branford-Wood said the grandmother's thefts between 2007 and 2014 were inspired by her cancer diagnosis. "She had thought she might have died before the thefts were discovered," Branford-Wood said. "She lost both her sisters to cancer in the mid-2000s and she had then been diagnosed but responded favorably to treatment. She had not expected to still be here." Defense attorney Brian Sharman said his client sought to "do something for her family as she was not going to be here much longer." However, Player has now been declared free of cancer and the judge sentenced her to four years in jail. She was also ordered to pay a $177 victim surcharge.
