Cleaners’ tears as mates have secret whip round to replace £4k stolen by boss
Supervisor stole Christmas hamper money
NHS staff who were conned out of thousands of pounds by their supervisor were reduced to tears when their colleagues secretly raised money to pay them back.
Sharon Bow told nine cleaning staff last January that she would take payments for a Christmas savings scheme with a hamper company.
But despite making about £4000 in payments to Bow throughout the year, they discovered no payments had been made when they called the firm as Christmas approached.
As Bow appeared in court on fraud charges, NHS staff in Kirkcaldy started a campaign to raise funds, and in just 10 days they were handed all the money that had been lost.
Louise Ross was so amazed that she wept on hearing of the generosity of staff and patients at the Fife town’s Victoria Hospital and Whyteman’s Brae Community Hospital.
She said: “They were giving donations, raffling things off, and every one of us got all our money back the Friday before Christmas.
“I want everyone to know what the NHS did for us – you’re talking nurses, doctors, patients, the lot. We were so humbled, because at Christmas time everyone struggles.
“For that hospital to come together for us, it was just amazing.
“I’ve never cried so much in my life, and it’s happy tears. It was really overwhelming.
“We all got a brilliant Christmas thanks to the NHS. It restored our faith in people.
“For one bad apple, there’s 200,000 good. On Christmas Day we were all on a group chat, saying ‘happy tears’. We never mentioned her name because we wouldn’t let her spoil our Christmas.”
Louise had paid £440 to Bow and the others had paid her up to £500.
Unravelling the sorry tale was a huge shock for the women.
Louise, 47, said: “We made all our payments, and then by December 1 a couple of staff had called the company to find that she’d registered all nine names but never paid a penny, not even in her own name.
“We tried to contact her and got no answer so the company told us to go to the police.
“We worked with her every night, so we didn’t think there was any problem.
“She’d been a supervisor for a while. Some of us had known her for years.
“She was chasing us for payments. We got paid on Thursday, and if she didn’t have it by Friday, she’d be quick in texting us to ask about it.
“She sent someone to my dad’s door for money when I was looking after him when he was dying of cancer.
“It would have hit others worse who had younger children at Christmas.”
Bow pleaded guilty to fraud at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court and was sentenced to a community payback order of 200 hours of unpaid work.
Sean Martin of Kirkcaldy CID said: “Sharon Bow abused her position of trust to take money from her own colleagues.
“She then callously continued, for almost an entire year, to steal her co-workers’ Christmas savings.
“I was pleased to hear that money was raised for those who were defrauded, thanks to the kindness of staff at the Victoria Hospital.”