Jessica Harper took money over four years while head of fraud and security for digital banking at Lloyds Banking Group

A former Lloyds bank boss in charge of online security has admitted a £2.4m fraud. Jessica Harper took the money over a four-year period while working as head of fraud and security for digital banking at Lloyds Banking Group.

Harper stood in the dock at Southwark crown court and admitted a single charge of fraud by abuse of position through submitting false invoices to claim payments totalling £2,463,750. She also admitted a single charge of transferring criminal property, the money, which she had defrauded from her employers.

The 50-year-old, from Croydon, south London, carried out the fraud between 28 December 2007 and 21 December 2011, the court heard. Antony Swift, prosecuting, did not open the facts of the case.

Carol Hawley, defending, said Harper was in the process of selling her £700,000 home to repay some of the stolen cash and was due to exchange contracts on Tuesday. She will be sentenced at a later date. Hawley applied for bail for Harper but Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith deferred a decision until retiring to consider the matter. Harper was allowed to leave the dock in the courtroom but ordered not to leave the building.