Cleaner who stole £90,000 of jewellery from Tory minister's wife walks free from court because she is a single mother

Barbara Kuligowska, pictured outside court at an earlier hearing, took the jewellery from Sallie, wife of Tory energy minister Charles Hendry, while she was cleaning their Westminster home

A Tory minister's cleaner who stole more than £90,000-worth of jewellery has avoided jail - because she is a single mother.



Barbara Kuligowska, 30, took the jewellery from Sallie, wife of Tory energy minister Charles Hendry, while she was cleaning their Westminster home.



The Polish worker was employed by the couple at their six-bedroom house for four years.



Among the jewellery she stole from them was a pair of Cartier earrings worth £25,000 and a diamond studded elephant brooch worth £8,950.



Southwark Crown Court heard Kuligowska had stolen the items and sold them for a fraction of the cost 'to make ends meet.' She was said to have pocketed as little as £6,000 from the sale of the items.



Several items later turned up on the internet and in pawnbrokers in London. However, the vast majority of the jewellery has not been recovered.

But Kuligowska, a mother of one, walked free after the judge, Peter Susman QC, handed her a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years, and ordered her to perform 60 hours unpaid work.

He said: 'This was a very serious offence indeed.

'You were employed as a cleaner of a house in London which was left empty for periods of time. You were trusted to go there and clean when it was left empty.

'You were well treated by your employers and it is to your credit that you spoke highly of your employers. You had even said had you supposed to ask for help you probably would have got it.

Charles Hendry, the MP for Wealden in Sussex, is Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, and was chief of staff to William Hague when he was Conservative leader

'Instead of that you were dishonest and stole jewellery to great financial value and, no doubt at all, some of it to great sentimental value to the loser.'



The judge said he had imposed the 'merciful' sentence because Kuligowska was a single mother.



Mr Hendry, the MP for Wealden in Sussex, is Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, and was chief of staff to William Hague when he was Conservative leader.



He married Sallie in 1995 after she reportedly gained a multi-million-pound divorce settlement from her first husband, a member of the Moores family who once owned the Littlewoods Pools empire.



Kuligowska, of Hammersmith, west London, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft by an employee.

Prosecutor Peter Lancaster told the court Kuligowska started working for the couple in 2007, but it was not until 2010 that Mrs Hendry noticed items of jewellery had gone missing.



'The defendant was trusted, she had her own key and she had the alarm code to enter the residence while they were away,' he added.



When Mrs Hendry alerted the police, Kuligowska initially denied the theft, but admitted it soon afterwards.



Thomas Garner, defending, said his client's nine-year-old son had been sent to live in Poland with her sister while she was working for the Hendrys and she had been sending money back to support him.



Mr Garner said: 'This was not an offence that was motivated by greed and certainly not something that funded a lavish lifestyle.



'She lived in a small flat and for the period of time had three separate jobs and was struggling not only to support herself but to send money home to her son who was proving a burden on the family there.' Kugliowska was also said to suffer from Hepatitis C.



The judge said: 'If you did not have a son I would without hesitation at all have sent you to prison.



'Because of your son I find it possible to take a merciful course and I have particularly in mind that whatever problems you have and have had are not the fault of your son and I think the court ought to take into account the effect on him.



'Some people may find that hard to understand and say that if a person in your position of trust breaches that trust the mere fact you are a single mother should not make a difference. I am not of that view.'

