A military staff sergeant defrauded his regiment out of a third of a million pounds, spent the money on luxury cars and adult services – and claimed compassionate leave by falsely claiming that a close family member had died.
Andrew Oakes, 39, used his prestigious position as financial systems administrator at the Catterick Garrison army base to fraudulently transfer Ministry of Defence money to his personal accounts, Teesside Crown Court heard.
He spent many thousands of his ill-gotten gains on three Teslas, a BMW Mini, a Nissan Qashqai – and a hair transplant. He’s now serving a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence for his outrageous scam.
Oakes appeared for sentence today after pleading guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation, fraud by abuse of a position of trust and acquiring criminal property.
The scam lasted nearly three years, between February 2021 and October 2024.
Prosecutor Tabitha Buck said that Oakes was an army staff sergeant employed as a financial systems administrator in the 2nd Infantry Training Battalion.
She said the role was given to “trustworthy” personnel because it gave them restricted but “significant” access to MoD funds.
In August 2024, Oakes was quizzed by his military line manager after she uncovered “multiple suspicious transactions in the system” and reported this to the Royal Military Police.
The investigation was then passed on to MoD’s Economic Crime Team.
Ms Buck said the grand scam started in February 2021 when Oakes falsified his bank statements to try to prove that he had £300,000 available to secure a mortgage for a property, claiming he had won the money in “the army lottery”.
Between July 2021 and April 2022, he created false local authority and utility documents to claim £1,584 of mileage allowance.
He started claiming from a mileage-allowance scheme for army personnel through which they could claim travel expenses for journeys between their homes and Catterick Garrison.
He did this by providing an address in Cheshire, but the council-tax bill he provided in support of this claim proved to be fraudulent and it transpired that he had been living in the North Yorkshire garrison town throughout the ruse.
By December 2023, Oakes had ramped up his fraudulent activities by falsifying His Majesty’s Government cheques which were supposed to be spent on public defence purposes, but were cashed into his personal account.
Over a period of about five months, Oakes, who had been given a pre-signed cheque book to use for military purposes, cashed dozens of cheques worth £336,448 after removing or falsifying reference stubs from some of the cheques to disguise the illicit transactions and make it appear that they were payments to others including military personnel.
Meanwhile, he was fraudulently claiming paid leave on compassionate and medical grounds, including by claiming that a family member had died.
Ms Buck said that Oakes took “extensive periods of leave” which, due to his elevated position in the military, were “self-authorised”.
He fraudulently took 66 medical-leave days and 12 on “compassionate” grounds.
It was these suspicious periods of leave which first “raised a red flag” among Oakes’s military bosses.
Ms Buck said that Oakes used the stolen military cash to buy three Teslas, a Nissan Qashqai, a BMW Mini and electrical goods.
He also shelled out £16,555 for ‘adult services’ and to pay off his debts.
His military line manager said she had been supportive and sympathetic towards Oakes at the time due to the ‘family bereavement’ and his perceived personal circumstances which gave rise to his request for leave on compassionate grounds.
Oakes, who was representing himself in court, said: “I just want to apologise to everyone I’ve hurt – family and the army especially. I was in a very bad place, drinking a lot of alcohol.”
He said he wasn’t a stable individual at the time, adding: “I regret everything I’ve done.”
Judge Nathan Adams said that Oakes had “wholly abused” a position of trust, prestige and “high responsibility” in which he was given significant access to state defence funds.
He added: “The impact of your offending is not simply the financial loss to the public purse but also the reputational damage caused to the organisation as a while, to Catterick and your battalion.
“Those officers who supported you with your personal problems felt significantly betrayed when they found out what was really going on and it’s had a significant impact on the morale of your battalion in Catterick.”
Mr Adams acknowledged that Oakes did have genuine personal issues at the time including the relationship with his former partner breaking down which led to a drink problem.
Oakes, of Station Road, Winsford, Cheshire, received a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence but was told that, under the Government’s new early-release scheme to free up places in the country’s over-stretched prison estate, he would serve less than half of that time behind bars before being released on licence.
He is expected to serve a maximum of 17 months in jail before being released.
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Disappointed and disgusted, he had great opportunity in his life , and just lmessed everything up for his family.