Man swiped £116k to buy a house for dying mum

access to the company’s online accounting systems.

“This enabled him to enter transactions, giving him a degree of management and control over funds held within those accounts.

“Part of his role meant that Mr Prior had responsibility for processing customer refunds.”

Prior worked as an accounts assistant with Thermo Fisher Scientific in Inchinnan.

The company produces medical equipment used in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.

The crook funnelled money into bank accounts owned by him and mum Catherine.

He disguised them as payments to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde; NHS Grampian; St Bart’s Hospital, London; and the London NHS Trust.

Payments required authorisation from the firm’s head office in California. But this was ignored. Prior was nabbed after a tip-off led to an internal audit.

The probe discovered he had paid himself almost £47,000 in just eight weeks.

The cash – pocketed between April 2013 and September 2014 – was used to buy and furnish a three-bedroom home.

He has been forced to sell it to pay back the money.

Defence lawyer Gordon Ritchie claimed his client turned to crime to ease his mother’s pain during her final days.

He said: “He never knew his father, his mother took on the role of both parents.

“He realised he owed everything to his mother for her guidance and trying to prevent him going down the same life of crime.

“He thought he would never be able to repay her.

“He was trying to make his mum’s life a little bit more enjoyable.

“He decided he wanted to get his mum out of the council scheme and into a house that was a little more luxurious.

“It was so that, what he thought would be the last few years of her life, which turned out to be the last few months, were a little more comfortable so that, as she was passing away, she had a degree of pride in him.

“She passed away without knowing the source of the funds.

“This is not someone who lived a lavish lifestyle.

“This is a unique case with unusual circumstances.”

Prior offered to pay back £96,000 in a bid to dodge a jail stretch.

Sheriff Colin Pet t i g rew deferred sentence to “give serious consideration” to the case.

Prior, of Glasgow, has been ordered to return to the dock next month.

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