A niece who stole thousands of pounds from her uncle’s firm has been disqualified from acting as company director for six years.

Fenella Carter was jailed for 20 months in April last year after admitting the theft of £33,700 while book keeping for her uncle Jerry Carter’s legal practice.

The money had gone on the purchase of a horse box.

In a judgment, Deemster David Doyle ruled that the Financial Services Authority’s disqualification claim was not out of time - and used his discretion to disqualify her from acting as an officer of a company for a period of six years.

Miss Carter had been contracted through her company FCS Ltd to provide bookkeeping services for Carters, her uncle’s legal services company.

The thefts began when she was aged 25 and ended when she was 26.

Some of the stolen money was transferred into her personal bank account in September 2010 and February and June 2011 and some was transferred into FCS Ltd in August 2009 and February 2011.

Mother of two Miss Carter, of Christian Avenue, Peel, lost her appeal against her 20-month sentence in May last year.

Last year, the FSA wrote to her asking her to give a voluntary disqualification undertaking for a period of nine years.

She gave no such undertaking and indicated her only current position was within FCSL and that not trading.

She asked for a stay of any disqualification proceedings until her release from prison at the end of January this year.

Miss Carter argued she had already been punished for her criminal conduct and wished to move on, and apart from the criminal conviction there have been no complaints about her conduct.

She said the dishonest conduct took place many years ago when she was inexperienced, unqualified and young and did not concern her conduct as a director of FCS Ltd.

And she said a substantial length of time has passed which had ’allowed her to mature, realise the errors of her ways and work hard’.

But the FSA contended this was a serious offence of dishonesty and involved a significant breach of trust and had major repercussions upon Carters and Miss Carter’s uncle.

Although the criminal conviction did not concern her conduct as a director of FCS Ltd, some of the stolen money was transferred to that company.

The FSA said there was no evidence that Miss Carter had learned her lesson or that she was genuinely remorseful or willing to accept full responsibility for her dishonest conduct.

There has been a lack of co-operation with the police and the authority, the watchdog added.

Deemster Doyle imposed a six-year disqualification order. He took into account the seriousness of the dishonest conduct but also the passage of time since the offences, the lack of any other complaints of wrongful conduct and the fact she had been out of corporate action while in jail.