Man jailed for stealing £520k from Ofcom

A former member of the IT team at Ofcom was jailed yesterday for stealing more than half a million pounds from the media regulator.

The Metropolitan Police said that Jurgen Whitehouse, 37, from Welling, Kent, used his insider knowledge to steal the funds from Ofcom between July 2008 and April 2009.

Yesterday, he was sentenced to two years and six months imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court after admitting to charges of fraud.

The allegations against Whitehouse were first reported to police on March 17 last year by the financial controller of Ofcom.

Following an investigation by the Met Police's Economic and Specialist Crime Unit, Whitehouse was arrested on June 29, 2010, and subsequently charged in February this year. He stole £522,123 from the regulator, but later repaid "a large percentage" of the money.

Detective constable Elliott Toms said: "This was a premeditated and calculated fraud on a public body which was conducted over a prolonged period.

"He exploited his expert knowledge of systems in place at Ofcom in order to steal in excess of half a million pounds.

"This sentence will hopefully serve as a deterrent to others who are similarly tempted to abuse their positions of responsibility."

In April, three Virgin Media employees were caught using insider information on phone voting patterns during last year's X Factor to place thousands of pounds in unfair bets on the show.