A bent lawyer who plundered the accounts of a law firm to fund a lavish lifestyle has been ordered to pay back a staggering £2M within three months - or face more jail time.

Linda Box, now 68, was jailed for seven years in March this year after Leeds Crown Court heard she had stolen £4m from client accounts at 200-year-old Wakefield based Dixon, Coles and Gill.

She was a senior partner at the firm and abused her position to fund her high-living lifestyle and love of shopping for designer clothes.

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She also took advantage of her role as a “pillar of the church” when she was registrar with the Diocese of Wakefield, to steal £63,000 of Church of England cash belonging to the Bishop of Wakefield’s Fund and diverted other church funds to herself.

Box, of Halifax Road, Dewsbury admitted nine counts of fraud, two of forgery and one of theft.

At the same court today it was agreed her benefit from her criminal conduct was £4,085,058 and that she had realisable assets totalling £1,943,045 which she was ordered to pay under a confiscation order.

Leeds Crown Court

Judge Penelope Belcher ordered that the amount under the confiscation order should be paid within three months or Box will face up to eight years in default. The issue of who is compensated will be considered at another hearing next year.

Nadim Bashir told the sentencing hearing that Box used money to fund her “obsession” for buying designer clothes, including having a special account with Harrods.

She and her family enjoyed £800 a night stays at The Ritz in London and she had bought a collection of vintage wine for her sons.

Ritz Hotel in London
Ritz Hotel in London

Illegally obtained cash was also used to pay credit card bills and council tax for family members. Box also paid £236,554 to a marketing and public relations firm which did work for her husband’s firm of funeral directors.

Jailing Box in March, Mr Justice Blake said it was a tale of misplaced trust “all because of your unrestrained and out of control greed.”

She had abused her position both a respected solicitor and as an official of the church, stealing money from the Bishop of Wakefield Fund and diverting other church sums into her own accounhts.

He said the bulk of her offending happened between 2010 and 2015 when she misappropriated large sums of money from client funds “to pay for personal expenses for yourself and members of your family.”

Over those 58 months she misappropriated £3m to pay credit cards “for luxury items you could ill-afford.” That included jewellery, £800,000 on vintage wines, stays at luxury hotels, and holidays.

She had accepted dishonesty when confronted by her partners but the scale and enormity of the breach of trust which was the judge said “staggering” only emerged when the investigation was carried out.