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By Sara Malm

PUBLISHED: 11:49 EST, 30 May 2012 | UPDATED: 12:38 EST, 30 May 2012

Janet Whitehouse at her court appearance at Westminster Magistrates court earlier this month, today she was sentenced at crown court

A finance director for the Royal Academy of Music who siphoned away nearly quarter of a million pounds from the charity to top up her 100,000 salary was jailed for 20 months today.

Janet Whitehouse, 56, pocketed over 200,000 from the Academy and let her son live for free in one of the school’s flats in swanky Marylebone cheating the RAM of 33,600 in unpaid rent.

She sneaked 100,000 into her private accounts and later claimed it had been approved by the college’s chairman Lord Terence Burns.

It later emerged that Lord Burns was unaware of the payments made between March 2007 and January 2011.

As well as stealing the 100,000 a further 104,000 was invoiced to Whitleys Associates, a company where Whitehouse was a director, for work she claimed to have carried out at the RAM.

She admitted in court that the invoices were ‘wholly bogus’.

The reason given by Whitehouse’s defence in Southwark Crown Court today was that she was envious of her colleagues’ pensions and was stealing the money to top her own.

Whitehouse also put her son up in one of the flats the Academy lets to students on a not-for-profit basis and let him live there rent free.

Speaking on behalf of Ms Whitehouse her defence Neil Saunders claimed that she saved the charity from financial ruin at ‘a stage where it could have essentially ended all its history and existence‘ in the mid-nineties thanks to her ‘expertise and hard work’.

She was caught out when the company carried out an audit in 2010.

After finding ‘financial irregularities’ Whitehouse, of the Isle of Dogs, East London, ‘panicked’ and faked letters purporting to be from senior staff agreeing to the transactions and later tried to get a colleague to destroy the evidence.

The Aurora Orchestra plays at the Royal Academy of Music: the charity school offers training for soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians, conductors, opera singers and composers

Whitehouse left the Royal Academy of Music in March last year and has since repaid the 236,000 she unlawfully took.

She pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud in the magistrates’ court earlier this month but the case was so serious it was transferred to the crown court for sentence.

Opening the case, Antony Swift said: ‘In August 2010, following the uncovering of an unconnected serious fraud of which it had been a victim, the RAM conducted a complete audit to check the extent of the fraud.

‘Letters were sent to all companies RAM had dealings with requesting information. Only one company refused, Whitelys Associates.

‘It was not known at the time that the two directors of this company were the defendant and her ex-husband. The extent of Whitehouse’s dishonesty was soon revealed, leading to the charges preferred against her.’

Southwark Crown Court heard Whitehouse started working at the RAM on a part-time basis in 1992 before taking over as full-time director of finance in 1998.

Whitehouse’s defence said that she was a woman of ‘impeccable good character’ adding that the RAM had been ‘her life for almost 20 years.’

The defence said her father’s death in 2007 was the trigger as she felt financially vulnerable in comparison to her colleagues on an academy pension.

‘She started to think about her future as she did not have an academy pension like some of her colleagues. She was embarrassed to ask so instead took the extra money.’

‘This is not an excuse for what she later did and she apologised to everyone at the academy for letting them down and for how truly sorry she is.
‘She deeply regrets her actions and the position she has now found herself in. What she has done has brought her name, her family and the name of the academy into disrepute.’

Whitehouse, shared a kiss and mouthed: “I love you,” to her partner as she stepped into the dock, dabbed her eyes throughout the hearing.

Jailing her for 20 months, Judge Deborah Taylor said she had no choice but to impose a custodial sentence.

She added: ‘You were appointed in 1998 to a position of the highest trust as the director of finance and administration at the Royal Academy of Music and you abused that trust by committing serious offences over a period of three and a half years to enrich yourself and benefit your family by three different means.

‘There is no doubt you have worked hard for the benefit of the academy and it is never pleasant to sentence someone of your obvious quality and ability who has suffered such a fall from grace.’

Based on London’s Marylebone Road, the Royal Academy offers training for soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians, conductors, opera singers and composers.

The school was founded in 1822 it has boasted many famous pupils. As well as Sir Elton John and former Eurythmics front woman Annie Lennox, Lesley Garrett attended the Academy and is now one of its trustees.