Jailed, MD of luxury clothing f irm who sold stock on ebay
FOR 30 years Will Lauder was treated almost like a son by the husband and wife owners of a high-end clothing firm who took him on as a teenager.
But last night the 48-yearold was starting a jail sentence after he was found to have stolen almost £200,000 worth of stock from them.
He rose to become managing director of Ken and Lydia Calder’s firm, Aero Leather Clothing, whose celebrity fans include actors Daniel Craig and Johnny Depp. Yet he pilfered vast amounts of leather jackets and jeans over eight years.
He also claimed much of Mr Calder’s personal history as his own, telling people he had supplied clothes to stars from the film and music world.
As he was jailed for 21 months yesterday, the Calders said they felt ‘betrayed’ by Lauder, who sold many of the stolen clothes for a fraction of their true value on eBay.
Mr Calder, 69, made clothes in the 60s and 70s for stars including The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Elton John. He also designed the leather catsuit Suzi Quatro wore in her first Top of the Pops appearance.
In the 1980s he set up Aero Leather Clothing in Galashiels, Selkirkshire, and took on Lauder, then 18, after he had asked him for a job. Yesterday, Mr Calder said: ‘For the life of me, I cannot understand why he did this. He seemed a nice guy, very quiet and very shy, but a hard worker.
‘We’d always treated him like a member of our own family; he was trusted completely.’
Lauder started to steal from the company in 2004 after the Calders took early retirement and moved to Inverness.
Within days of their departure he was taking stock and selling it on eBay, but it was eight years before the Calders realised something was amiss.
In late 2012, Mr Calder looked closely at the firm’s internet activity and found Lauder had
‘Treated like a family member’
set up an eBay account and used it to sell more than £52,000 worth of stock for just over £10,000.
After Lauder was confronted with his eBay sales he was fired. When he refused to hand back his shares in the firm, the police were called in.
They searched his home in Hawick, Roxburghshire, in 2013 and f ound a top- f l oor room crammed with stolen stock.
The haul included more than 200 pairs of jeans worth up to £400 each and 160 jackets, including 75 hand-made leather items worth an estimated £600 each. It took nine officers more than eight hours to remove the items – valued at more than £142,000.
Mr Calder said: ‘I’d never imagined for one moment the sheer volume that we were shown at Hawick Police station. When my wife saw it all, she burst into tears. I think it was the betrayal of trust it represented to her.’
After a three-week trial earlier this month at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Lauder was found guilty by a majority verdict. Sentencing him yesterday, Sheriff Alistair Noble, said: ‘You’ve been convicted of stealing just under £195,000 of property belonging, with the exception of a few items, to the company of which you were managing director.
‘In part, this may have been because you felt you were insufficiently rewarded for the work you were doing for the company, but the remedy for that is not theft.’