A teenage girl on a paid work placement at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has been jailed for five months for attempting to steal thousands of pounds.
Titilayo Olaifa, now 19 years old, was placed at the magic circle firm on a scheme designed to give people from a disadvantaged background experience in the City.
Olaifa – on her second stint at the firm after work experience in 2005 – stole some 11 cheques and wrote them herself, with six of them totalling around £60,000.
Four cheques were picked up but two cheques worth £13,500 were cashed.
Olaifa pleaded guilty to one count of theft and one of "fraud by abuse of position" in June last year.
Freshfields said that neither the firm nor any clients have suffered a loss as a result and are committed to taking teenagers on in this scheme and others.
The Career Academies UK internship programme runs six-week work placements nationwide and places young people in big business. Allen & Overy and DLA Piper also support the programme.
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This is utterly disgusting. Some people (and please note 'some') are disadvantaged for a reason; that they simply cannot be bothered to work their way out of poverty, preferring to steal and rob instead. I would give my right arm for a work placement at Freshfields, but because I am middle class and had a good education, and have been brought up well being taught not to abuse opportunities such as these, I am disgarded in favour of a thief. Yet another example of reverse discrimination biting a firm on the ass. I hope they learn their lesson.
I am pretty confident that there is not a shortage of lawyers at Freshfields or the rest of the magic circle who are from middle-class backgrounds. If you can't get in it's because they are discriminating on the grounds of performance. If, despite your middle class/privileged background, you underperform, deal with it in a manner other than looking for excuses - you'll have a better life.
I don't think she was doing a legal work placement. Wasn't it a placement in the firm's finance department?
How on earth did a 19 year-old on work placement get access to cheques! --In hindsight, and seriously, most requests for cheques are done by admin staff, but should be authorised by a partner/fee earner, unless of course that signature was forged too! Come to think of it, it can be easily done, so isn't it time re-evalute the risks attached to requesting cheques? And being young and underprivileged is not an excuse - does anyone remember the high-flying PA at Goldman Sachs caught for her long-term theft? This is a wake-up call for firms to check their procedure for cheques and pay a bit more attention as to what sums are going where and for what. For every person caught there are always at least a few who have got away with with it - this young girl must have got the idea from somewhere...
Knife crime and violent assault is 'utterly disgusting'. Work experience fiddles MC firm for £60k is quite funny.
This is a salutory lesson to law firm HR departments to exercise proper managerial controls in recruitment.
How annoying! I cannot believe that a 19-year-old like this gets on at such a prestigious law firm, when as a law student i cannot get near the place for any kind of placement - not even as a cleaner!
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