Lifestyle consultant stole thousands from ex-Baggies player Peter Odemwingie and ex-boss Tony Mowbray
She was supposed to organise luxury holidays, flights and honeymoons for her high-profile clients.
But lifestyle consultant Claire Duke stole more than £80,000 from them as she 'robbed Peter to pay Paul' in a desperate bid to avoid going bust, a court was told.
Duke, aged 38, pocketed money given to her by her clients – who included ex-Baggies striker Peter Odemwingie, former West Brom boss Tony Mowbray and Liverpool player Andre Wisdom.
At Stafford Crown Court yesterday she admitted seven counts of fraud and was given a two-year jail term suspended for two years.
Duke cashed in on the wedding of Odemwingie by duping him into paying twice for his luxury £7,000 Venice honeymoon.
The court was also told how Odemwingie unwittingly picked up the bill for a £15,000 break in the Caribbean enjoyed by Liverpool player Andre Wisdom. Odemwingie was playing for West Brom when he asked lifestyle consultant Duke to arrange £7,000 worth of flights to Miami in April 2012 and gave her his credit card details to pay for them, said Mr Hugh O'Brien Quinn, prosecuting.
The previous month his future mother-in-law, Mrs Tracy Fallon, had given Duke £7,560 to cover her daughter's honeymoon to Venice but the lifestyle consultant pocketed the cash.
She used the card again to settle the cost of Andre Wisdom's £15,106 Caribbean holiday and conceal the fact that she had kept the £6,600 paid in advance by the Liverpool fullback, added Mr O'Brien Quinn. Mowbray paid her £10,400 to arrange a holiday for his wife in Dubai.
But Mrs Mowbray arrived to find the hotel was not booked and had to stay in 'inferior' accommodation. When the bill arrived she discovered she had been landed with the entire £13,016 cost of the trip. Duke blamed a mix up by the original hotel and assured the Mowbrays the £10,400 could be used on another holiday although really it had been kept by her.
The soccer manager was left a total of £27,738 out of pocket, the court was told. Duke tricked a total of £82,561 from six people between April 2012 and July last year although the overall loss was £64,974 since some of the stolen money was used to pay the costs of other clients as she juggled the books to cover up the racket, it was said.
Miss Ajanta Kaza, defending, said: "She badly executed a good business idea and took risks with other people's money to try to get it back on track until things spiralled out of control. She was robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Duke from Farm Crescent, St Albans, was also given 150 hours unpaid work.
