A SOUTHAMPTON graduate has avoided jail after conning her bosses out of £17,000 to pay for her dream wedding.

Gabrielle Yinka Saunders, 32, splashed out £10,000 on the ceremony using company credit cards in the names of her colleagues, to pay for the do at Belair House in Dulwich, south London.

The former University of Southampton student was arrested at Heathrow after returning from her her honeymoon in the Seychelles - also paid for using company money.

Police discovered she began defrauding her employers, Insight Investments, just one day after starting the £40,000-a-year role.

That was despite being convicted of a £34,000 fraud at her previous employers, PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Judge Stephen Gullick decided against sending Saunders to prison, after it was revealed she had paid the money back and is due to start a teaching course in September.

He said: “You have a singularly unimpressive record and you have already served a prison sentence some time ago.

“You did not disclose your previous dishonesty to your employers who were prepared to take you on as an administrative assistant on a good salary.

“The fact is within days you were prepared to take advantage. You effectively defrauded others to the tune of £17,000, all of which has been paid back.

“That money was used to finance your wedding which took place in October last year and the subsequent honeymoon.

“You have now started working in a completely different environment. I hope they will never place you in a position of trust with anything to do with money.

“These were serious offences but it appears you are turning your life around.

“If you continue to commit offences of dishonest of this nature you will eventually receive a very long sentence if imprisonment indeed.”

Saunders was given a suspended sentence of 15 months imprisonment, with 200 hours unpaid work.