A FORMER bank manager has been sent to prison for 15 months for stealing nearly £10,000 from her employer.
Sharon McCarthy, 37, had been an employee of the Royal Bank of Scotland International, trading as NatWest, for 14 years when she was found to have transferred money into a variety of accounts to pay off personal debts.
One of her responsibilities had been the prevention of staff fraud. She pleaded guilty to one count of theft, which included four transactions totalling £8,475.85 in the period between 1 November 2004 and 31 October 2006, as well as a second count of obtaining £1,500 in cash by way of deception.
McCarthy also admitted money laundering in respect of two transactions included in the one count of theft. The sentence passed down for each count was 15 months, to be served concurrently.
Her advocate, Sarah Brehaut, argued that the offences were not highly sophisticated and that they could easily be tracked backed to her client. She added that the money had not been taken to fund a lavish and outlandish lifestyle.
Advocate Brehaut said it would be unfair to compare the case with that of Emma Le Sauvage, who in October was jailed for two-and-a-quarter years for stealing £277,335 from RBSI.
She urged Judge Russell Finch and the jurats to impose a community service order, but that was rejected.
Judge Finch said such a sentence would not have been appropriate.
‘This was not a case of a junior shop assistant putting her hand in the till. This was thoroughly dishonest and reprehensible behaviour.’
He said it was worrying that McCarthy had initially tried to hide her guilt from her employer when first challenged about the transactions and that she had also lied and held back information from police in subsequent interviews.
The Royal Court heard that at the time of her arrest, McCarthy had five unsecured loans with local finance companies plus overdraft and staff loans with the bank. In addition to credit card accounts, that meant she had unsecured personal debt totalling £98,000.
In an attempt to pay that off, McCarthy had used her position at the bank, which as well as fraud prevention included charge of cash controls and statements and monitoring cash differences.
She had used a variety of suspense and surplus accounts, screen-based transfers and completed debit vouchers to complete the transactions.
In respect of two transactions, one for £2,343.60 and the other for £3,657.40, McCarthy had attempted to conceal the acts by using a system known as layering – she tried to launder the money she had stolen from an account through a number of others before then effecting transfers that delivered money back to the original account.
No compensation order was made – the money has since been repaid.
Article posted on 9th April, 2008 - 2.29pm
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