‘Trusted’ store boss helped herself to £34k
51-year-old supervisor jailed after stealing thousands of pounds over eight month period from Asda
A ‘TRUSTED’ Asda supermarket boss who dipped her fingers in the tills to steal more than £34,000 over eight months has been jailed.
Tracy Crowley’s ‘quite deliberate and prolonged’ campaign of theft at Asda in Marple was rumbled after a colleague became suspicious, a court heard.
Crowley, 51, from Woodley, was responsible for the store’s ‘end-ofday’ cashing up and also supervised a cash office, Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told.
Her role included supervising money placed into self-service checkout tills. But the court was told she stuffed notes in her pocket then hid them in her coat before leaving at the end of her shifts.
A‘TRUSTED’ Asda supermarket boss who dipped her fingers in the tills to steal more than £34,000 over eight months has been jailed.
Tracy Crowley’s ‘quite deliberate and prolonged’ campaign of theft at Asda in Marple was rumbled after a colleague became suspicious, a court heard.
Crowley, 51, was responsible for the store’s ‘end-of-day’ cashing up and also supervised a cash office, Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told.
Her role of service section leader included supervising and controlling money placed into self-service checkout tills.
But rather than putting money into the tills, the court heard she stuffed notes in her pocket then hid them in her coat before leaving at the end of her shifts.
The court heard Crowley then went to ‘considerable lengths’ to conceal her thefts on the store’s accounting systems by adjusting the figures and ‘making them appear to tally when they did not’.
Crowley, of Hollyhouse Drive in Woodley, Stockport, pleaded guilty to theft and false accounting at a previous hearing.
She was jailed on Thursday for 10 months by a judge who said she couldn’t suspend the sentence.
In mitigation, the court heard she had been suffering from a depressive illness and spent the money on gifts for her children and other people.
Recorder Rowena Goode said Crowley’s thefts represented a ‘quite deliberate and prolonged course of conduct’ and said that she took individual sums of as much as £1,500 at a time.
The judge said she had been employed by Asda for a ‘considerable period of time’ and in 2015, gained a ‘position of considerable trust’ at the store by becoming responsible for the cash tills and the cash office.
The court heard she had taken almost £34,400 over eight months.
“It is clear that the motivation for the commission of these offences was contributed to by a depressive illness,” the judge added. “It seems that you took this money, at least in part, to spend it on buying gifts for other people.
“Where precisely it went is not clear but I am told that the money has been spent. This was akin to an offence of fraud. It was a theft that was covered up through false accounting. You were in a position of considerable trust.”
A hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act has been listed for August, after which Crowley could be forced to repay a sum.