A West Sussex-based RVN has been given a suspended prison term after she admitted submitting fraudulent insurance claims, worth more than £13,000, for her pets.

Police said Gemma Cole had “exploited” her employer’s systems over more than four years to submit claims for treatment and medication that they had not received.

Cole, 31, of Staples Barn, Henfield, was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for a year, at Lewes Crown Court last Thursday (29 August).

She had previously pleaded guilty to a single charge of fraud by abuse of position in a hearing before Crawley magistrates in July.

Pet medication

Officers from the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) began investigating Cole in June last year after concerns were raised by a senior member of staff at the practice where she worked.

The force said an earlier audit conducted by Allianz, which insured her three cats and three dogs through its subsidiaries Petplan and Pets at Home, found she had claimed for £13,334 of medication and treatments that they had not genuinely received, between December 2018 and May 2023.

A subsequent search of Cole’s home by IFED officers uncovered what they described as “a large quantity of pet medication” that was dispensed as a result of the claims.

Exploited access

When interviewed, she admitted making the claims, stating she had used colleagues’ accounts in some instances as they had been logged into the system at the times she accessed it.

Detective constable Richard Fox from the IFED unit said: “Cole exploited her access to her employer’s systems for [more than] four years to receive insurance payouts that she wasn’t entitled to.

“Submitting claims on insurance that you have deliberately exaggerated is fraud and Cole will now rightly have to face the consequence of having a criminal record.”