A bank cashier who stole thousands of pounds from vulnerable elderly customers — including an 85-year-old stroke victim — to fund luxury holidays to Africa, Dubai, Paris and the Caribbean was exposed after colleagues grew suspicious of her lavish lifestyle on Facebook and has been jailed for 16 months.
Kershaw, 54, had worked as a trusted cashier at Nationwide’s Caernarfon branch for 18 years before committing the offences during 2023 and 2024. She targeted a number of vulnerable customers, including an 85-year-old stroke victim and a 49-year-old man with learning difficulties who kept his bank card at the branch having previously fallen victim to fraud. Caernarfon Crown Court heard she stole £8,605, with Nationwide subsequently reimbursing customers a total of £12,630. She pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud.
Her downfall came through her own social media activity. While earning approximately £1,400 a month, Kershaw was simultaneously posting photographs on Facebook of safari trips in Africa, skiing holidays, a Mamma Mia tour of the Greek islands, and visits to Paris, Tuscany and Dubai. She captioned one post boasting she was “living and loving life one adventure at a time.” An image of a BMW with a personalised licence plate also appeared among her posts. Colleagues flagged the apparent contradiction between her salary and her lifestyle, triggering an internal investigation in 2024 amid concerns she had been forging customer signatures and processing unauthorised cash withdrawals.
Prosecutor Huw Evans told the court: “It was noted by members of staff she was having numerous expensive holidays and appeared to be living beyond her means.”
When questioned, Kershaw claimed to suffer from a “compulsive shopping addiction” and said she had given money to beggars and used it to pay household bills. She also accepted that funds had been spent on holidays to the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Sentencing her, Judge Timothy Petts said a custodial sentence was necessary as a deterrent. “Your pattern of offending was repeated,” he told her. “You forged people’s signatures or you would take their card to withdraw a large sum from the account and only hand over part of it.” He added that when asked why she had targeted those particular customers, she had said they were “easy targets who wouldn’t notice the money going from their accounts.” The judge noted pointedly: “The reality is you only stopped stealing money because suspicions were raised about your lifestyle, investigations took place and your fraud was discovered.”
In mitigation, defence solicitor Michael Strain said Kershaw had moved to the area to start afresh before developing an illness, and that she “genuinely doesn’t know what caused her to behave in this way.” He added that she had lost her job, her good name and her reputation for honesty, and was now working for a cleaning business.
Although all victims have been reimbursed by Nationwide, a proceeds of crime hearing is due to take place later this year to recover losses to the building society.
