A COUPLE who swindled Oxford University's Said Business School out of £54,000 have been ordered to pay back just £719.68.

That is all that Anne-Marie Jordan and Shylock Utsiwegota could afford to repay, Oxford Crown Court heard today.

The couple, of Trinity Street, Oxford, are currently serving prison sentences for the fraud, but were brought to the court to listen as their limited financial assets were read out.

Jordan, 36, was jailed for 32 months in October after she admitted six counts of fraud by abusing her position while she was an accountant at the business school.

Utsiwegota was jailed for 16 months after he admitted possessing criminal property – £21,000 which Jordan transferred to his account.

At the October hearing Jordan claimed she originally told her partner the university was giving them the money as part of a "relocation package" after they moved to Oxford from Reading so she could take the job.

She transferred a total of £54,000 into her account in five separate payments in August and September 2014.

But when she attempted to make a sixth payment, this time for £12,700, an eagle-eyed apprentice in the accounts department spotted something was wrong.

She saw Utsiwegota’s name on an invoice and recognised it as Jordan’s partner.

After investigating and discovering that five other payments had already been made in his name, she raised the alarm with supervisors.

The business school suspended Jordan from her job on October 2 that year and she admitted everything at a disciplinary meeting on October 22.

But by that time the trial heard all the money had already vanished.

At Oxford Crown Court today, prosecutor Robert Lindsey said financial investigators found Jordan had two bank accounts containing a total of £669.68.

He said the same team found that Utsiwegota had no assets of any value at all.

Judge Ian Pringle ordered Jordan to pay the £669.68 in her accounts plus a £120 victims' surcharge, and ordered Utsiwegota to pay a nominal £50 and a £100 victims' surcharge.