A FRAUDSTER who tried to illegally claim more than £11,000 from his employer was branded an arrogant liar by a judge.

Matthew Hawken, 39, of Carisbrooke Road, Newport, was sentenced to a nine month sentence, suspended for two years, after a jury found him guilty of two counts of fraud.

He was also ordered to pay £1,000 towards the prosecution costs and to do 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Hawken, worked as head of the planning department at Technicolor Nimbus UK Ltd, a DVD factory in Cwmbran, at the time.

Abusing his position, he tried to gain payments of £6,580 and £5,287 by writing fraudulent invoices from a company called FJSUK, then produced purchase orders in an attempt to cover his tracks.

But an internal investigation at the firm traced the invoices back to Hawken, who had just been made redundant.

Hawken, accepted producing the documents but claimed they made their way to the finance department by human error.

He also claimed he had made the fake production orders as a test template for a business he was planning to set up, and signed them by mistake.

But Judge Roderick Denyer, sentencing him, described this claim as "ludicrous".

He added: "He is a liar and it took the jury very little time to see through him.

Judge Denyer went on to tell Hawken: "You are in my judgment a thoroughly dishonest person.

"You are also an extremely arrogant person."

Marion Lewis, defending, said: "It was a one-off offence.

"His only previous conviction was for an offence over 20 years ago."

She also said Hawken's income was used to support two families and that he was more useful to society in employment than in prison.