Criminal Cleaner Gets 4 Years Behind Bars

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Stole more than £30,000 from Putney homes

Domestic cleaner Katerina Petkova was sentenced to 43 months imprisonment for theft at Wood Green Crown Court last Friday. From April 2012 to the same month last year, Petkova stole over £30,000 in cash and jewellry from the homes which she was employed to clean.

Petkova, who is 41, gained employment as an agency domestic cleaner for over a year at several companies, and began to take advantage of her position to steal cash and jewellry.

Her thefts finally came to the attention of the authorities when the owner of a property on Rotherwood Road SW15, where Petkova had been working, came home to realise that tens of thousands of pounds worth of rings had been stolen, and reported the cleaner to the police.

After Petkova was arrested at her home in Haringey in April 2013, a full year after she became active as a cleaner in the area, a further investigation by police linked her to 12 other theft incidents in Wandsworth, Haringey and Hackney.

When brought to trial this year, the former cleaner admitted to a dozen charges of theft, and earlier this week Petkova was sentenced to serve nearly 4 years in prison. The possessions of victims which were stolen, however, are unlikely to ever be recovered.

DS Jason McElroy from Wandsworth CID praised what he called a "coordinated and thorough cross-border investigation" by local police. He also condemned the damage caused by Petkova to her victims:

"Katerina Petkova was invited into the homes of hard-working people and offered their trust. Katerina abused this trust throughout a sustained period of criminal activity which resulted in the theft of more than £30,000 worth of unrecovered property, many of which held a sentimental value which cannot be replaced."

April 1, 2014