The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Mum embezzled £150,000 from support agency
COURT: Woman, 50, jailed for 21 months after squandering taxpayers’ cash
A mum who embezzled £150,000 from the Child Support Agency where she worked has been jailed for 21 months.
Audrey Foy squandered an average of £7,000 a month on herself and her teenage son as she “frittered away” vast sums of taxpayers’ money.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court was told yesterday that the only substantial purchases had been a car and two holidays, one of which was to New York.
Foy told in 2009 how she had given up trying for a baby after the heartache of three miscarriages. But she unexpectedly fell pregnant in 2003 aged 36.
Her solicitor Peter Mullen said the 50-year-old had no money left and was unable to explain what she had spent it on.
Foy, of Turner Crescent, Methil, admitted embezzling the sum while employed by the Child Support Agency in Kirkcaldy.
The crime was committed over a 21-month period from June 6 2014 to March 18 2016.
Mr Mullen said she was not in a position to pay the money back.
The solicitor appealed to Sheriff Grant McCulloch to show a degree of mercy.
“While Miss Foy recognises that the court must lock her up, I’m asking you not to throw away the key,” he said.
Sheriff McCulloch told Foy she had carried out a “systematic fraud” of the Child Support Agency.
Adding that she had shown little remorse or explanation for what she had done, he added: “It is with regret, but with necessity, that I impose a sentence of 21 months imprisonment.”