Manager Alan Hall stole £136k to lavish on younger girlfriend
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by Keith Hunt
A manager who systematically
stole more than £136,000 in coins from railway station car park
machines has been jailed for four years.
Alan Hall’s partner Tracy Scott - more
than 30 years his junior - enjoyed the fruits of his
thieving.
But she escaped an immediate prison
sentence because of their two children aged nine and four.
Hall was working in the London area
and the South East for Meteor, which was contracted by South
Eastern Railway, when he took the money over almost three
years.
The 65-year-old, of Barleycorn,
Leybourne, East Malling, admitted theft.
Scott, 34, admitted acquiring criminal
property and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for
two years with unpaid work of 175 hours.
Anne Phillips, prosecuting, said
bosses at the company became suspicious about variances in amounts
being collected by Hall and set up CCTV cameras at Sevenoaks
station.
He was seen on several occasions
putting his hands into cash counting machines and taking money out.
He would sort out cash and place it in a money bag.
When arrested in December 2009, his
car was searched and £263 was found in the boot, an amount similar
to the shortfall that day.
Mrs Phillips said a financial
investigator looked at the couple’s accounts and found that
following Hall’s dismissal the total unexplained amounts in them
was almost £100,000.
Hall, who served in the RAF and once
worked for the Zambia High Commission as a chauffeur and bodyguard,
at first claimed the money came from boot fairs.
Mrs Phillips said Scott’s involvement
was assessed at £50,000.
Judge Jeremy Carey asked where the
money stolen had gone as the amounts stolen amounted to about
£44,000 a year, the equivalent of a gross income of £70,000.
The prosecutor said some money had
gone into their children’s accounts, there was a car worth about
£11,000 and Hall had gambled some. They had not taken expensive
holidays.
Judge Carey said there was a
substantial degree of trust on Hall’s part. He was trusted to count
the money and record the amounts.
"Over a period of just short of three
years you stole from your employers by literally dipping into the
boxes – a very substantial sum indeed," he said.
Tuesday, February 07 2012
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