A Hampton grandmother conned more than £20,000 out of the plumbing business where she worked and then falsely accused the owner of sexual assault when she was caught.

Serial fraudster Mia Sairah, 55, of Fulmer Close, was a bookkeeper at Feltham based BHP Mechanical between September 2011 and June 2012 and started stealing money from the company on her very first day, Kingston Crown Court heard.

Sairah stormed out of her job in June 2012 when her employer Philip Golding and his wife found she had used the company credit card to buy goods from Amazon and was overpaying her wages.

Sairah, who was being investigated for benefit fraud at the time, denied the allegations when she was arrested and accused Mr Golding of sexual assault, resulting in his arrest.

The court was told that she also took the company to a tribunal forcing the Goldings to pay her more than £1,000 in unpaid wages.

These claims turned out to be false and Sairah eventually pleaded guilty to eight counts of fraud on January 8 this year.

During her sentencing at Kingston Crown Court today, Sairah's defence barrister Barry Kogan said his client had needed the money to pay her son’s girlfriend who was threatening to report him to police for domestic abuse unless she got money for furniture.

Mr Kogan argued that Sairah, who was also convicted of theft and fraud when she worked as a bookkeeper in Twickenham in 2003, should receive a lighter sentence because she was depressed after her son was jailed for 10 years in January for slashing his girlfriend with a knife.

He said: "There were things dominating her life out of her control. It was a miserable existence at the time. It is clear that she was already under significant pressure when she took this job."

But judge Stephen Bellamy-James QC said that her Sairah's previous convictions for similar crimes proved a "pattern of deceit" and her actions almost destroyed a 40 year-old family business.

He said: "You nearly cost [the Goldings] their company, their livelihood and their lifetime's work to collapse around them. It was clearly planned. It makes me question seriously the amount of remorse you feel."

Sairah was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

Speaking after the verdict Mr Golding said the true cost of Sairah's deception was close to £70,000 after they had paid fines and reimbursed suppliers she had not paid.

He added he was pleased with the verdict and "glad everything was behind them".