A letting agent who stole £400,000 in rent and deposits has lost an appeal to have her four and a half year prison sentence reduced.

Amy Williams, 28, was sentenced in April after pleading guilty to 26 charges of theft and fraud.

Her boyfriend, Glenn Austin, with whom she ran Williams & Young in Sutton Coldfield, received two and a half years for theft.

The money had been paid into Austin’s account. He then gambled it away.

Williams had no idea the money would be blown on gambling, the Appeal Court heard last week.

Williams and Austin targeted people looking to rent homes and landlords, letting out the same property to multiple tenants.

The couple then simply left their clients homeless, pocketing the deposits and rent paid up-front.

Williams also diverted rent payments earmarked for landlords.

At her appeal, she complained her sentence was far too tough and out of line with Austin’s, although he had been involved in “80% of the losses caused”.

Mr Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Flaux, said Austin was “perhaps fortunate” not to have received a longer sentence.

But that did not mean that Williams’ jail term was anything other than “entirely appropriate”

The appeal was dismissed.

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