Bookies repay £500,000 stolen by gambling addict
gambling operator had made an ‘ex gratia’ payment – one made from a sense of moral obligation rather than any legal requirement – to the council.
Now the identity of the firm and the size of the payment have been discovered using freedom of information legislation.
However, a spokesman for William Hill would not comment over why it felt ‘morally’ obliged to give the council £500,000.
Conway used fake invoices to carry out his six-year scam between August 2009 and May 2016, before council bosses grew suspicious and began an investigation.
Only £7,337 of the money, which was lost betting on football matches, was recovered.
Last year, he was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow to five years and four months in prison after admitting to defrauding the council of £1,065,085.
According to a scrutiny committee report, the full financial loss has been recovered through methods including Conway’s pension, the payment from William Hill and the council’s insurance policy, with the exception of a £10,000 policy excess.
Passing sentence on him, judge Graeme Buchanan told him: ‘Your addiction to gambling led to the
‘Important we learn the lessons’
commission of this crime. However, that is no excuse for what you did.’
Defence counsel Gavin Anderson said: ‘Initially he tried to pay off his gambling debts and remortgaged his home twice.
‘His aim was to pay back the money with gambling winnings, but that never happened.’
Labour councillor Richard McCready was a member of the scrutiny committee which analysed the fraud incident.
He tabled a motion calling on chief executive David Martin to write to the Gambling Commission and the Department of Digital Culture, Media and Sport.
Mr McCready described the issue as ‘just a little bit grubby’.
He said: ‘It is clear Mark Conway is the main culprit in this case, however there has been a failure on behalf of the banks, the Gambling Commission, William Hill and the council and it is important we learn the lessons from this.’
Charity Gamble Aware said: ‘Gambling companies should be constantly looking for any indication their customers are getting into trouble with their gambling.
‘One obvious signal is a higher than normal level of spending, which these figures suggest could have been very clear.’
The Gambling Commission said it could not comment on the issue due to its role as industry regulator.
A council spokesman said: ‘Following the discovery of this crime, Dundee City Council has taken action to prevent a fraud of this type from happening again in the future.’ BOOKMAKER William Hill has paid a Scots council £500,000 after an IT worker at the authority who ran up online gambling debts siphoned off more than £1million from his employer. Mark Conway, 52, was jailed last year for defrauding Dundee City Council. Following a meeting of the authority’s scrutiny committee in December, it was reported a