Pair facing jail for £60k fraud at credit union
A MOTHER and daughter face jail for frauds totalling £60,000, taking loans in a dead man’s name and plundering children’s bank accounts. Catherine Burnett, 63, and Andrea Rodden, 44, took money out of the Whitehill Hillhouse Earnock Burnbank Credit Union in Hamilton, where they worked.
Branch manager Burnett applied for loans while her daughter changed details to stop them slipping into arrears.
The pair took out cash totalling £6,000 in loans for 73-yearold John Higgins, who had died six years earlier.
Other bogus loans included £8,200 taken out in Burnett’s brother’s name without his permission.
Rodden, who worked as a senior financial administrator, also plundered £31,000 from savings accounts used by children.
Their scheme began to unravel when credit union bosses suspended Burnett over bullying allegations.
A probe discovered major irregularities in accounts.
Burnett visited Mr Higgins’s son and pleaded with him to say he had applied for the loans in his father’s name, but he contacted the police.
Burnett and Rodden, both of Hamilton, have appeared at the town’s sheriff court and admitted a £30,000 fraud between 2007 and 2013. Rodden also admitted stealing £31,000 by fraud between 2012 and 2013.
Depute fiscal Callum Forsyth told the court that an HR consultant
‘Altered the computer’
called in to deal with the bullying claims found several issues in accounts.
He added: ‘One was for a Mr John Higgins, who passed away in September 2008, but in 2014 loan applications were made in his name for £2,000 and £4,000.
‘Burnett filed an application and the accused’s daughter Rodden altered the computer system to adjust the interest rate to zero and change the loan repayment date so it did not show up as arrears.’
Mr Forsyth said Burnett went to the house of Mr Higgins’s son in a distressed state and provided him with details of the loans on a piece of paper which was handed to police.
The court was told investigators discovered dozens of loans had been made for customers who were not aware of what was happening.
Rodden made 68 transactions ranging from £100 to £2,500 from children’s customer accounts to her own.
Sheriff Shiona Waldron deferred sentence on both for reports.