Revealed: Britain’s worst worker kidnapped 14-year-old schoolgirl

A serial conman who once blew £170,000 of stolen money on a cocaine-fuelled weekend of sex with prostitutes had 14 years earlier abducted a 14-year-old schoolgirl, MailOnline can exclusively reveal.

Darren Carvill, 43, from Kent, has been convicted of various offences while working as a teacher, an accountant, and a finance assistant.

Carvill – dubbed the UK’s worst employee – was today jailed for three years for stealing £90,000 from a travel agency and a Holiday Inn, where he worked as a finance assistant.

He was caught by police who found him intoxicated and lying face down on the side of a road – after walking out of the Rochester Holiday Inn with thousands of pounds.

He changed his name by deed poll after his release from prison, following a two-and-a-half-year sentence handed down in 2019 for stealing more than £260,000 from a car servicing company where he worked as an accountant.

He spent most of it in a single weekend of hedonistic partying in August 2018, during which he was seen taking cocaine and drinking champagne in a London club with up to ten female escorts. He later claimed he had been bullied at work and wanted to ‘go out with a bang’.

Now, MailOnline can reveal that in 2006, Carvill was convicted of child abduction after developing a ‘friendship’ with a 14-year-old girl while working as a teacher in Essex two years earlier.

Accountant Darren Carvill, 43, from Tovil, defrauded new bosses at a Holiday Inn and a travel agents ‘to make himself feel better’ after changing his name by deed poll

Carvill, 43, has now been sentenced to a further three years in prison

Speaking to KentOnline, Carvill claimed at the time that he ‘didn’t realise’ he had abducted the schoolgirl after failing to ‘get permission’ to take her out outside school.

He said: ‘I didn’t realise if you didn’t get permission it was classed as abduction. We were friends and there was nothing sexual. I admit I made a huge mistake, but she did agree to come with me.

‘What I did is wrong but it’s not like I dragged someone under false will into my car and kept them locked up – which is what abduction sounds like.’

He added: ‘The possibility of going to jail is a hard thing to contemplate, especially if you might be going to jail for a sexual crime against a child – you’d be treated as scum.’ 

Carvill also told the paper that the pressure of the trial had caused him to begin drinking regularly. 

He taught at the school until the summer of 2004, when he was given an official reprimand for the relationship and left to take another teaching job at Bennett Memorial School in Tunbridge Wells. 

Two months later, police contacted Bennett Memorial School to inform staff of its investigation into Carvill. He was suspended and ultimately ceased any employment there.

Then-headteacher Ian Bauckham said: ‘After an enhanced CRB check, which came back clear, Mr Carvill began work at the school in September 2004.

‘Two months later I was contacted by Essex police with regards to an allegation made that day and I immediately suspended Mr Carvill. He is no longer employed by the school.’

None of the money, which the sentencing judge heard Carvill stole to ‘make himself feel better’, has been recovered 

He was previously jailed for two-and-a-half-years in 2019 for stealing more than £260,000 from a car servicing company, Mr Clutch

After the firm grew suspicious and Carvill was placed under investigation by the police, he took up a new job at a branch of Holiday Inn in Rochester.

In April 2023, he stole a further £13,000 from the hotel chain on the very day he was due to meet with managers who had discovered his criminal history.

None of the money, which the sentencing judge heard Carvill stole to ‘make himself feel better’, has been recovered. 

Prosecutor Stacey-Lee Holland said while working for the travel agency, Carvill would transfer thousands of pounds into his bank accounts and mark them as ‘expenses’ using the reference ‘director’ to avoid detection.

But as the fraudster grew more confident, the prosecution said he began acting strangely and stopped turning up for work, which ultimately led to the discovery of the fraud. 

Ms Holland told the court: ‘He didn’t come into work, he stated his mum had dementia and that he was struggling. That became more frequent and it was only at that stage that the payments were noticed.

‘When confronted he stated he ‘had no choice’, and when interviewed voluntarily at the police station he admitted to taking the funds, that he had spent the money and there was none left.

‘He said he had been down at the time and this was a way to make himself feel better.’

Shortly after moving on to the Holiday Inn, bosses discovered Carvill’s criminal history and placed him on suspension, pending a scheduled meeting on April 28 last year to allow him to prove his identity.

The court heard how Carvill brazenly turned up in his work uniform ‘in the early hours’ with what the judge described as ‘a lot of front’.

Carvill was arrested after police found him lying face-down in an intoxicated state at the side of a road in Maidstone 

The prosecutor said: ‘He entered the office, completed a refund of £9,784 and paid it onto his bank card. He did that almost immediately on having entered work that day.

‘He then went into the cash office, opened the safes and removed £3,261 in cash, hiding it in his jacket.

‘He was blatant in his actions because, as he left, he lifted his jacket, showing the cash, and said to a colleague ‘See you in the morning’ and left the hotel.’

A month later Carvill was arrested after police found him lying face-down in an intoxicated state at the side of a road in Maidstone. 

In court, he continued to claim he did not receive the £9,784 refund, adding: ‘I’m a fraudster and I don’t expect you to believe me.’

His defence lawyer Katie Bacon said her client had ‘deep remorse’ and had not ‘sought out’ financial roles since his release from prison.

She said the latest offending occurred as he was grieving for his father, caring for his mother and then, following her death, living in hotels after being evicted from the family home.

‘He is not someone who continually seeks to offend but someone who has taken the wrong path at a time of difficulty,’ said Ms Bacon. 

She added he took money from Holiday Inn in a moment of ‘panic’ when he faced losing his job, and is now a ‘valued and supported’ member of staff at Toby Carvery.

Judge Julian Smith jailed Carvill for three years as he slammed his ‘breath-taking dishonesty’.

He said: ‘You are not a victim. Others are the victims. Your name carries that stain of dishonesty by what you did. By not declaring it is misrepresenting your background. You may want to wipe the slate clean. You can’t do that by not declaring.’

In total Carvill has 57 previous convictions, 52 of which are for fraud or fraud-related offences. 

In 2019 Maidstone Crown Court heard Carvill filed bogus payments to himself after claiming he was bullied at work. 

He admitted 18 counts of fraud and said he suffered from low self-esteem and became addicted to a night-life of high-class escort parties being surrounded by ‘glamorous’ people and drugs.

At the time, a source who witnessed Carvill splurging tens of thousands of poundssaid he attended a club in London called Platinum Lace. 

The source said Carvill also went into a room at another club, ‘with three escorts, [where] they drank champagne and used cocaine,’ adding: ‘By the end of the night he had nine or ten escorts in with him.’

While working for Mr Clutch, initially Carvill stole £40,000 but then repaid £36,500.

By October 2018 he took another £60,000. Then in August 2019, the accounts worker took £72,000, followed by £40,000, £10,000, another £10,000 and £12,000.

The court heard the defendant, who paid wages and bills for the company, had previous convictions for ripping off a previous employer.

In 2008 he was given a suspended year jail sentence at Maidstone Crown Court for embezzling a travel company out of money.