A finance manager has been jailed for 18 months for defrauding Medway NHS Trust out of £35,000.

Jenny McDonagh was also sentenced to four years for stealing from the £62,000 Grenfell survivors' disaster fund.

McDonagh, 39,worked for the health body as a financial officer, based at Medway Maritime Hospital between 2015 and 2016.

She pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position of trust over a three to four month period.

She was charged with the offence on Thursday, the day before the sentence for defrauding Grenfell victims of the inferno.

Seventy two people died in the fire at the high rise block of flats in south west London last June.

Judge Robyn Johnson blasted McDonagh for putting NHS finances under strain.

He said: "It is a well known fact that the NHS, funded by the taxpayer, is fully stretched to meet the ever increasing demands on its resources.

“In my judgement it is an aggravating feature that your dishonesty placed additional strain on the Medway NHS Foundation Trust’s budget.

“The second was to steal funds in a way that any member of the public would find repugnant.”

“I have to sentence many cases that have come to be known as Grenfell frauds, your offending is unique in my experience.

“As the finance manager at the Grenfell Team with Royal Borough Council of Kensington and Chelsea you knew exactly what these funds were for and the importance of them for the intended recipients, namely the victims of the fire.

"Bearing that in mind the scale of your dishonesty in these frauds beggars belief.

McDonagh, of Abbey Wood, south east London, blew the money on luxury holidays to Dubai and Los Angeles, fine dining, expensive shopping and online gambling.

She even continued to use the stolen cards without bank accounts, after police quizzed her under investigation in August this year.

Neil Ross, mitigating, said McDonagh apologised to her victims and added: “She found herself so lost that this frivolous spending caused by her serious offending was her escape.

“She has destroyed her marriage. Her husband has now moved out of the home they shared.

“Because he’s a decent man he’s come here today devastated by what’s happened.

“She’s destroyed her own future, in effect has brought this down and all of this down on herself.

“She is, I would say, a pathetic woman now and in the original meaning of that word.

“She is now back on anti-depressants, she was on them before, she’s trying to seek counselling. She will of course have a long time to think about her actions to come."

McDonagh looked up to the ceiling and began to cry as she mouthed "I love you, I am sorry, I will be ok" to her husband in the public gallery.

Lesley Dwyer, chief executive of Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We take an absolute zero tolerance approach to theft at the Trust.
"As soon as our suspicions of a potential fraud were raised, our staff conducted a thorough and professional investigation into the missing money, supported with expertise from our colleagues in the NHS Counter Fraud Authority.

"We were pleased that we were able to feed in the findings from our investigation to support the successful prosecution this week."