A dishonest employee who stole almost £250,000 and spent it on a lavish lifestyle has been ordered to pay back just over £30,000.

Kerry Stone siphoned off the cash over four years while she was a purchase ledger assistant with Mr Clutch in Priory Road, Strood.

Maidstone Crown Court heard as well as owning expensive BMW and Mercedes cars, the 32-year-old “trusted employee” took her bricklayer boyfriend Aaron Davis on £12,000 dream holiday for his 30th birthday.

Stone, of Chequers Court, Strood, was jailed for four years in November last year after admitting defrauding Mr Clutch and subsidiary company CIS out of £248,783 between February 2009 and June last year.

Davis, 34, also of Chequers Court, Strood, and Stone’s mother Maureen, 63, of Poplar Road, Strood, denied laundering some of the stolen cash and were acquitted by a jury.

Stone committed the massive fraud by creating false invoices for payments that did not exist.

She entered the payments onto the company system and paid the cash into her own bank account, as well as the accounts of her mother and boyfriend.

Just short of £110,000 was paid into Davis’ account and over £32,000 went into her mother’s account.

Stone took Davis on a lavish holiday to Mauritius and Kenya as a birthday treat in September 2010, flying club and business class.

She claimed she started taking money from the company to pay off Davis’ drug debts.

The prosecutor said about £27,000 in building society accounts was frozen and Stone’s home had been sold.

Judge Jeremy Carey said nearly all of the dishonesty was based on greed.

Stone fed her baby as she appeared at Maidstone Crown Court on Thursday by TV link with Bronzefield Prison in Shepperton, Ashford, Surrey.

After being told that her realisable assets amounted to £30,097, Recorder Michael Byrne made a confiscation order in that sum.

Financial investigator, Steve Paine of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: "Despite Kerry Anne Stone being jailed for a serious breach of trust, we continued investigating and trawling through accounts.

"While it was clear she had spent a large amount of the money she fraudulently obtained while in a position of trust, we were able to prove there was more than £30,000 sitting in various accounts and pension pots owed to her employer.

"We were able to use the Proceeds of Crime Act to claim money back and will continue to relentlessly pursue profits made from criminality."