Pizza Hut manager ‘stole daily’

The former manager of an Invercargill Pizza Hut is facing charges of taking $49,000.

Sandeep ‘‘Andy’’ Goyal has pleaded not guilty to 105 representative charges of theft by person in a special relationship, in Invercargill between December 2016 and May 2017.

Crown prosecutor Sarah McKenzie, in her opening address to a jury trial yesterday, said Goyal effectively took cash as he used a manual charge button on the till; money from those orders would not be recorded in the takings.

In his opening address, defence lawyer Scott Williamson said it could not be proven his client pressed the button or took the money, and it was the defence case that he did not.

At no time was the defendant the only person in the restaurant, and Goyal was to be presumed innocent, Williamson told jurors in the Invercargill District Court.

There is a representative charge for every day Goyal worked at the Pizza Hut during the period in question, with individual charges ranging from $4 to $1570.30.

In December 2016 a man bought the business from franchiser Restaurant Brands Ltd, McKenzie said.

Goyal was store manager at the time of the sale and stayed in the role.

Other staff would give evidence that he spent most of his shift on the till, she said.

When Goyal sent the owner transaction records, the manual transactions were cut off, McKenzie said.

After Goyal stopped working there, the owner realised revenue was not what it should have been, she said.

The trial before Judge Bernadette Farnan is expected to take more than a week.