Jail for taking £200k from two businesses
Mum of four stole cash as bosses grieved loved ones
A trusted book keeper who embezzled £200,000 from two businesses was this week sent to jail for 18 months.
Jenny Lilly, 45, siphoned off £150,000 from the Real Food Cafe, in Tyndrum and £50,000 from Later Life Training, of Killin.
The “manipulative” mother- of-four struck after the bosses of both businesses were grieving after bereavements, and used the money to prop up her own bed and breakfast business in Tyndrum.
She was caught after transferring £30,000 from Later Life Training to the cafe in an attempt to cover up a deficit she had created. When it was spotted she claimed it was for a friend’s brain tumour operation.
Stirling Sheriff Court heard Lilly had been taken on as a book-keeper by Angus Heward, late husband of Sarah Heward, owner of the cafe, prior to Mr Heward’s death in 2006.
Prosecutor Kavin RyanHume said she came to be regarded as a friend by Mr Heward’s widow Sarah.
But concerns emerged over her performance as she had been “paying the wrong suppliers, not reconciling bank statements, and had failed to pay a large utility bill”, so another book-keeper was brought in to work alongside her.
In addition, Mrs Heward’s father had become ill, leaving her “in no fit state to make decisions”.
The new book-keeper identified 69 transactions in which Lilly, who had been trusted with banking the cafe’s cash takings at Tyndrum Post Office, had transferred money to accounts held by herself and her husband Paul, or to their bed and breakfast account.
Mrs Heward had to “continually” put money into the cafe to prop it up, “notwithstanding that it appeared to be profitable”.
Mr Ryan-Hume said: “She accrued significant personal debts because of this.
“She recalls the accused living in a big house, and asking her how she afforded it. She said she had been left money by her grandmother.”
In February 2013, Lilly was additionally employed to look after bookwork at Later Life Training, run by Dawn Skelton, -professor of ageing and health at Glasgow Caledonian University, with her work overseen by the professor’s father. It is a not-for-profit concern that provides specialist exercise training to help frail elderly and stroke survivors.
But in March 2015, Professor Skelton’s father was taken into hospital and died.
Following the alarm raised by the Real Food Cafe, and audit of Later Life’s online banking – to which only Lilly and Professor Skelton’s father had access – six “suspicious, nonlegitimate transfers” to Lilly and her husband were identified.
The first was made on the day Professor Skelton’s father was admitted to hospital, and all the subsequent bogus payments were made after he died.
A bogus transaction enacted before his death had been made to appear as though it was paid to a legitimate person.
A new book keeper, who initially had difficulty accessing Later Life Training’s online banking because Lilly claimed to have “locked herself out”, confronted her and she begged him not to call police.
Lilly sent him an email with regard to the £30,000 payment to the cafe.
Mr Ryan-Hume said: “It said that she had borrowed the money to give to a friend for a brain tumour operation with the intention of immediately repaying it from a loan she had already applied for.”
Lilly, an ex-soldier, now of Brackley, Northamptonshire pleaded guilty to the embezzlement from the Real Food Cafe between May 2011 and November 2015 and from Later Life Training between January 2015 and April 2016.
Ann Jane Malloy, defending, said she had lost her home and her marriage, was the sole carer for her four children, and had repaid £60,000.
She said: “The money taken wasn’t used for extravagances - there were no holidays, there were no cars.”
Jailing Lilly, Sheriff William Gilchrist said she had been guilty of a “serious breach of trust”.
He added: “The sentence would have been far longer if it was not for your personal circumstances.”