Store worker stole goods worth £5,600 to sell BOB’S CANCER WONDER DRUG JOY: PAGE 3 online
ATHIEVING employee at Stockport’s John Lewis store stole £5,630 of stock and sold it through a bogus eBay account.
Ashley Graham Holland, 32, of Cheadle Heath, had worked at the Cheadle Royal store for 15 years and hoarded stolen items at his parents’ and partner’s houses.
Goods he had taken included watches, purses, handbags, cameras, iPads, mobile phones, tom toms and makeup before selling them online.
Holland was given a suspended prison sentence of 10 months and 200 hours of unpaid work at Minshull Street Crown Court.
ATHIEVING employee at Stockport’s John Lewis who stole thousands of pounds of stock and flogged it through a bogus eBay account has escaped jail.
Ashley Graham Holland, 32, of Cheadle Heath, had worked at the Cheadle Royal store for 15 years when he was rumbled - and found to be hoarding stolen items at his parents’ and partner’s houses.
Goods he had taken included watches, purses, handbags, cameras, iPads, mobile phones, tom toms and makeup before selling them online.
Holland was given a suspended prison sentence of 10 months and 200 hours of unpaid work at Minshull Street Crown Court.
He had pleaded guilty to theft at a previous hearing at Stockport Magistrates Court. The value admitted to was £5,630.
And the period he confessed to stealing from the store in ran from May 2014 to April 2016, but suspicions were aroused by February last year.
An investigator for John Lewis became concerned by an eBay account that was selling items available in the store.
She found the postcode connected to the account and the username of ‘Toby’ belonged to Holland and alerted the store.
The loss prevention team then started monitoring stock and keeping a list of items that had gone missing. Evidence was handed over to the police who raided his in-store locker, parents’ house and partner’s house, finding stolen goods in each.
After the raids police praised John Lewis’ investigative work.
Inspector Neil Cook, from Stockport police, said: “The internal security team did a very professional investigation, which can often make the difference between the case being progressed or dropped.
“Due to the professional and thorough evidence package handed over to the police, a search warrant was applied for and executed. A large amount of stolen property was recovered and the employee was arrested.”
The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed there will now be a Proceeds of Crime hearing on June 12.
A spokesman for John Lewis said: “While we cannot go into detail on the security measures that we have, we take any incident of theft extremely seriously.
“As with any incident of crime, we will work closely with the police and are thankful for their swift cooperation.”