Mum admits fraud at Tesco store
3:23pm Wednesday 15th February 2012 in News
A woman who stole at least £8,000 from Trowbridge's Tesco store over three months has walked free from court after a judge ruled she used the money for ‘ordinary household expenses’. Sarah Brailey, of Lacock Gardens, Hilperton, plundered cash from the tills at Tesco as well as putting refunds on to her debit card.
But the 33-year-old’s deceit, which funded a new car, was ‘not financially motivated’, the court was told.
As well as using the money for household living the mum-of-four also spent £3,000 on a Renault Scenic, which the court ruled must be sold to pay some of the money back.
Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon crown court on Wednesday that Brailey had worked at the supermarket for about six years.
At the time of the offences she said she was working on the Tesco Direct desk in the store, where items were ordered from a catalogue.
She said security became suspicious about a number of refunds being paid into Brailey’s personal bank card via her staff log-on, which was against company policy.
They found a significant number of irregularities and when they spoke to her about it she claimed it was for items she had bought and was returning.
Brailey was suspended from work and then resigned, but the police became involved and got hold of copies of her bank statements.
When she was first questioned she admitted masking the payments to her debit card and then revealed she had also made cash transactions.
Miss Hingston said CCTV footage was viewed and it could clearly be seen that when she issued a cash refund for a TV there was no-one there with the set.
Other transactions were not so easy to verify from the footage. Brailey gave officers a written statement saying she took £8-9,000 from October 2010 to January 11 last year and answered ‘no comment’ to any other questions.
Brailey pleaded guilty to fraud.
Ann Ellery, defending, said her client accepted she had committed a serious breach of trust by stealing from work, aggravated by the element of planning involved.
But she said it was over a short period of time when she was in a ‘self-destruct’ mode as her mental health suffered.
Miss Ellery said her client had children aged 11, nine, seven and three, and had suffered post-natal depression made worse by the break -down of her first marriage.
She said of the offending “It was not financially motivated. It was not to fund a drug habit, not funding a lavish lifestyle. The money went into funding household expenses.
“As a person she doesn’t feel herself to be a thief, as it were. She wants to pay back the money.”
She told the court her client currently earned about £250 a month as a part-time cleaner and her new husband worked nights, getting about £1,600 a month.
Passing sentence Judge Euan Ambrose said “The money was not in fact used to fund a lavish lifestyle.
“You have four young children and the money was applied to by and large ordinary household expenses.
“The only item of significant expenditure was the purchase of a car for £3,000, otherwise the money was spent on household expenses.”
He imposed a three-month jail term suspended for two years and told Brailey to do 150 hours of community service.
She must also pay £1,800 in compensation from the sale of the car and then £100 a month for the next two years.
