A mother-of-two whose husband was jailed for three years after stealing £370,000 from his employer to fund his gambling addiction is calling for more support for the families that are left behind.
Becky Jones, 29, a midwife from Nottingham, was four months pregnant when Ben, 30, her partner of 15 years and husband of three, admitted to her in July 2018 that he had stolen around £20,000 from his local rugby club.
The club didn’t press charges but four months later Becky was stunned to find out Ben had also stolen thousands of pounds from his employer, The Cake Decorating Co, where he worked as a wholesale manager.
Over three and a half years he took up to £30,000 a month from the company, nearly driving it to bankruptcy.
Becky Jones, pictured, a mother-of-two whose husband was jailed for three years after stealing £370,000 from his employer to fund his gambling addiction, is calling for more support for the families that are left behind
‘I remember ringing my mum in hysterics, I couldn’t believe what had hapepend, I couldn’t breathe on the phone, I was distraught,’ Becky previously told the BBC’s File on 4.
In November last year at Nottingham Crown Court, Jones was jailed for three years for the theft, after the court heard he was in the grip of an addiction so severe it was categorised as a ‘psychiatric disorder’.
Speaking to BBC News this week about her ordeal, Becky admitted she had ‘no idea’ about her husband’s problem until his shocking confession.
‘When he told me I just remember breaking down in tears,’ she said.
‘We ended up having to move out of our rented house into living with my dad. I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant.
Becky was four months pregnant when Ben, 30, pictured right, her partner of 15 years and husband of three, admitted in July 2018 that he had stolen around £20,000 from his local rugby club
‘On a daily basis I was in complete survival mode. Some days I can’t even remember because I did what I could to get through that time.’
When her husband was sentenced to three years in prison, Becky recalled: ‘My heart was just racing and I felt physically sick and I knew Ben would be feeling the same way.
‘He’s not cut out for prison, he’s not prison material; I was completely heartbroken. I think inside he was certainly scared.’
When his rugby club caught him stealing, which meant his wife and father would learn about his addiction, Ben drove to B&Q with a plan to buy materials to end his life.
Convinced not to by his wife, he finally sought help from Gamblers Anonymous.
He formally excluded himself from all betting websites including Betway on July 21, 2018, using the national Gamstop service designed to help addicts block themselves.
‘He he couldn’t even get on the National Lottery site,’ Becky explained.
Now Becky is still living with her father and caring for the couple’s two daughters, aged eight and one, while Ben serves his prison sentence. Pictured, Becky with one of her children
‘[But] one day he had something come through to say a bonus had been deposited into his account. He went back on there, and ultimately that’s when the most damage was done.’
During the court case it emerged Ben received hundreds of messages from Betway staff.
A slew of documents reveal how the offshore betting giant, which turned over £282 million last year and sponsors West Ham FC and the Grand National, handed Jones a £300 bonus to keep betting after he had ‘self-excluded’ himself via the national anti-addiction scheme to try to get a grip on his habit.
Ben made a ‘subject access request’ with the support of his wife, which revealed his entire betting history with Betway.
Hundreds of chatty messages sent by a ‘VIP host’ and the failure of Betway to spot red flags in his bank account were revealed under Freedom of Information laws that require a company to send information they hold on an individual if requested.
It emerged Ben took up to £30,000 a month from his employer, The Cake Decorating Co, the premises pictured above, nearly driving it to bankruptcy
Now Becky is still living with her father and caring for the couple’s two daughters, aged eight and one.
‘Ben is in prison, and I’m left behind having to deal with the repercussions of a gambling addiction, support a family, and there is no support network out there for me,’ she said.
‘So I decided to set up a little Facebook group called GAMILY (Support For Families Of Gambling Addicts) for people to vent those feelings and emotions.’
Speaking about Betway, Becky said: ‘I wanted to email them back and let them know how they’d ruined everything and, how could they not have seen that he had a problem?
‘By offering them these free things, it’s a sense of grooming in order to keep them betting. For me, the VIP schemes are the main thing. They need to be scrapped.
Nottingham Crown Court (above) heard that Jones took the cash between May 2015 and November 2018, forcing the company to take out high-interest loans to stay afloat
‘There needs to be a new gambling act and companies need to be looked into because not all of them are looked into as they should be. I do think they’re preying on the vulnerable.’
She added: ‘I don’t want to be Rebecca, the wife of a gambling addict, the rest of my life.’
A spokesperson for Betway told the BBC: ‘Betway recognise that we did not perform to the high standard we hold ourselves to in this case.
‘We have refunded all of the money back to those that were harmed by these events and we are sorry for any harm caused.
‘The results of this case led us to bring in much stricter anti-money laundering (AML) controls and we have disbanded the VIP program.’
The Mail’s Stop The Gambling Predators campaign backs tighter regulations on the gambling industry, which makes £14.5billion in profit a year.
Under their licence conditions, gambling companies are required to check where the money customers bet comes from to prevent crime and money laundering.