IT boss who stole £19MILLION from energy firm and blew most of it gambling online is jailed for seven years

Jonathan Revill, 38, submitted false invoices to order computer equipment

He then sold gadgets on and made £5.6million profit over three years

But he gambled away nearly all the money - and carried on after his arrest

Now his family will lose their home after he was sentenced to seven years



Jailed: Jonathan Revill, 38, defrauded his employers of £19million over the course of three years

An IT manager who defrauded his employers out of £19million to fuel his gambling addiction has been jailed for seven years.

Jonathan Revill, 38, exploited his position at a multinational energy company to order computer equipment which he then sold for a fraction of its worth, using the proceeds to bet online.

He gambled as much as £300,000 on a single sporting fixture and even blew £20,000 in one night after he had been arrested over the deception.



During a three-year period he made £5.6million from selling the equipment, but all he had to show for it was a £500,000 family home in West Yorkshire.

His wife did not learn of his criminal behaviour – or his secret gambling addiction – until he was caught and she was told they would lose their home.



Revill, a father of one, pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to four offences of fraud and three of transferring criminal property – selling goods obtained by crime.

He was employed as a service delivery systems manager at a Leeds-based subsidiary company of GDF Suez – one of the world’s biggest energy companies with a billion-pound turnover.

Mehran Nassiri, prosecuting, said Revill was earning a £55,000 a year with a £400-a-month car allowance but had a ‘serious addiction to gambling’.

Less than a year after he started working for the firm he realised he could place orders that would not be noticed.



Although he was limited to £3,000 purchases without further approval, he forged signatures and over the next three years ordered equipment worth £18,976,000.



It was delivered either to his home in Huddersfield or to a storage unit, Revill then either auctioned it on eBay or sold it for a fraction of its value to one of six companies.



Home: Revill used the proceeds of his fraud to buy this £500,000 family house in Huddersfield Addiction: Revill once spent £300,000 in a single session of gambling on websites such as Bet365

His deception came to light in May when an audit at GDF Suez revealed financial irregularities – but by then he had gambled away nearly all of the £5.6million he raised from selling the goods.

Jailing him for seven years, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: ‘This was a vast amount of money.’ He warned Revill that his wife and daughter would now have to look for somewhere else to live.

After his arrest, Revill was granted bail on condition that he stopped gambling and sought immediate help for his addiction.



However, on June 2 he accessed more than £20,000 in an Isle of Man-based account and gambled it in a single evening.

Benjamin Hargreaves, mitigating, said Revill had placed a bet for £11,200 on a Roger Federer tennis match and £13,000 on a football match during the betting spree. He added: ‘Winning or losing didn’t matter.’

Big game: After his arrest, the IT manager gambled thousands on the result of a football match between England and Brazil, pictured

Loss: Revill wasted £11,250 betting against Roger Federer, pictured, on the same day

Mr Hargreaves said Revill had tried to win big to pay back the company and at one time had £3million in his account ‘trying to get myself out of the hole I’d dug’ – but that had gone.

Revill was relieved to be finally caught and was shocked at the total involved, he said.

‘He accepts over the last ten years a gambling problem has got bigger and bigger. The problem is his own and he should have sought help and by his lies and trying to hide it he brought himself to this.’

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Griffin, who heads the Leeds District Proceeds of Crime Act Team, said: ‘Revill abused his position of trust.

‘His actions have destroyed his life and affected a number of businesses. This case clearly highlights the very serious consequences of gambling addiction.’

The court heard that Revill had built up debts during four months of unemployment before starting his job at GDF Suez in April 2009.

He had also been made bankrupt in 2005, but had not told his wife.