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'War hero's daughter defrauded NHS of more than £200,000'
The daughter of a popular Vale war hero has admitted to defrauding the NHS of more than £200,000.
Louise Tomkins, 48, daughter of the late Sir Edward Tomkins, pleaded guilty to a series of fraudulent invoices for more than a year to get money out of the NHS totalling 201,333.27.
Southwark Crown Court heard that Tomkins had submitted false invoices between July 2007 and September 2008 amounting to large amounts of money that were paid to herself and others.
She will now have to sell her horses from Southfield Stud in Horsham, West Sussex, which she has run since leaving her senior general manager position at Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust.
A close friend of Sir Edward and Lady Tomkins said: "Her parents would be absolutely devastated by this. She is highly intelligent, highly entertaining and extremely good company. She is very convincing and extremely well read and up with what's going on in the world. Very sad really."
In December 2008, Tomkins was arrested and questioned by the Metropolitan Police over allegations that she had imported horse sperm into the UK saying it was human semen for IVF treatment.
Internal audits at the NHS discovered there was a series of large purchases of human semen from overseas suppliers.
It is believed this was then used to impregnate horses at Tomkins' stud which breeds competition horses.
Her father was a popular character in Bucks where he lived at Winslow Hall until he died aged 91.
He was an ambassador to Paris under Edward Heath and has been hailed a hero after walking 500 miles from imprisonment in an Italian PoW camp during World War II.
He later became ambassador to The Hague in 1970 before heading to Paris in 1972.
Louise Tomkins grew up in Winslow Hall which Tony Blair looked at buying in 2007.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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