A housekeeper, who nicked £30,000 from the safe of her United Nations lawyer at his £9m home near Sloane Square, has received a suspended prison sentence.
Phillipines-born Evangeline Gutierrez, 46, pounced when Saudi-born Cambridge-graduate Prof. Dr. Malik Rabea Dahlan, 48, was away with his wife, ex-UN consultant Sarah Yamani, 39.
The couple founded London-based Institution Quraysh, a law firm specialising in Middle East legal and political issues, with Dahlan using his skills as an international mediator and academic.
Gutierrez, of Munster Road, Fulham pleaded guilty to stealing £20,000 sterling and $15,000 in US dollars between October 20 and 31, 2016.
She also pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation, namely signing a £2,000 cheque belonging to the couple and withdrawing the cash from Barclays Bank, Sloane Square on October 22, 2016.
Southwark Crown Court Judge Martin Griffith told the single mum-of-one: “You had a job as a housekeeper for a couple, who put you in their greatest possible faith.
“Their home, the contents of their home and substantial quantities of cash available to you. While they were away you took advantage of that and took thirty thousand pounds in sterling and dollars.
“This was a breach of a high degree of trust placed in you by your employers.”
Sentencing Gutierrez to twelve months imprisonment, suspended for two years, he told her: “By the skin of your teeth I am not going to send you to prison today.”
She was also ordered to perform 300 hours community service, however Judge Griffith announced: “I am not making any compensation order because you don’t have the means to pay it.”
The court heard Gutierrez had easy access to a cupboard, which contained the key to the legal couple’s safe at the luxury five bedroom, four bathroom house.
“She shows to me a great deal of remorse and victim empathy. She is completely utterly embarrassed and ashamed,” said Mr. Hugh D’Aguilar, defending.
“She quite rightly fears for her four year-old daughter if there is a custodial sentence.
“She has made it clear she is more than happy to pay back the money.”
Dahlan also attended Harvard Law School, where he obtained a masters degree, and is well-known internationally as a Rule of Law advocate in the Middle East.
The father-of-four was also a special advisor to Lord Woolf, former Chief Justice of England and Wales and Sir William Blair and is the founding director of the Qatar Law Forum.
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