A retired radiology department manager pleaded guilty yesterday in Southwark Crown Court to faking invoices totaling £1.14m after 29 years of service.

Anne Baker, 62, from Cornwall admitted to fraud by abuse of position, false accounting and money laundering whilst working for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) in one of its London offices, the court heard.

Baker, who used her maiden name of Fitzpatrick, signed off monthly invoices from 1998 to 2012 totalling £1,142,101.97.

Baker retired in March last year after 29 years at the company. She was later arrested in August 2012, following a six-month investigation by Westminster’s Economic and Complex Crime unit after an internal audit found invoices addressed to a ‘Dr Baker’, a name unknown to the company’s database, for radiography fees.

The investigation traced the fake invoices to Baker’s own bank account, the same account that her salary was paid into.

Detective Constable Julie Jode said: “Mrs Baker was an employee of this company for 29 years and has completely undermined the trust placed in her. She has abused her position not just once but on repeated occasions during her employment and has shown no remorse for what she has done. She gave little or no thought to how her behaviour and actions would impact on the company she worked for or her colleagues.”

Baker’s husband Andrew is also due to go on trial in August 2013 on suspicion of money laundering although pleads not guilty. Anne Baker’s sentence will be determined after this trial.