A Fife woman who stole £18,000 from a luxury chocolate fountain firm is behind bars.
Elaine McCall, 51, pled guilty to embezzling the money from Sephra Europe Ltd while an employee at the firm’s Kirkcaldy site, between March 2019 and March 2020.
She initially spent money on Amazon purchases and admitted she was “living beyond her means”.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard McCall, of Spencerfield Road in Inverkeithing, was previously jailed for 16 months for a similar crime in 2005.
Banking discrepancies found
Procurator fiscal depute Catherine Fraser told the court McCall was an accounts administrator at Sephra and gained the trust of company bosses while operating an accounting system there.
Those in charge became increasingly involved in managing finances due to the Covid pandemic and started to notice numerous unexplained transactions on the company RBS bank account for services they had never used.
McCall was asked to investigate this and although she claimed the money would be refunded having apparently spoken to people at the other companies, it never was.
Her line manager made enquiries and attempted to obtain account access from McCall but she failed to provide it, sparking further concerns.
An in-depth review of spending on the Sephra RBS account uncovered a number of unauthorised card transactions.
False invoice entries were found to have been added to the accounting system by McCall to ensure the bank account would still reconcile.
Fedex and Amazon payments
The court heard McCall also set up direct debit payments for “FXDIST” from Sephra’s account.
Although Sephra did use the global distribution giant Fedex, the company director believed the payments were incorrect.
After some probing it was found she had used the email address fedexdist@yahoo.com and her mobile number to set up the payments, which were made to her personal account.
Sephra’s American Express account was also scrutinised and a number of unauthorised Amazon transactions were discovered.
McCall’s employment was terminated by letter in March 2020 as a result of the findings.
In an email reply to the company director she claimed she had tried to speak to him “about things a couple of times” and that she was “truly sorry for everything” and had betrayed their trust.
The court heard she also pleaded with him not to contact the police and said she suffered from mental health issues.
Fraudulent activity relating to cash payments made by customers was subsequently discovered by the company director.
‘Living beyond her means’
Police later searched McCall’s home and found debt letters and relevant bank statements.
When detectives interviewed her about embezzling money from Sephra, she stated she had been “living beyond her means”.
McCall told police she made personal purchases on Amazon using the Sephra account and when she “realised no-one picked it up” she had used it “to my advantage”.
Months later, the company director received an email from McCall in which she apologised for her actions and stated: “I still can’t explain why I did what I did apart from it was some form of control that I thought I needed back in my life”.
The fiscal depute said McCall embezzled a total of £18,000 from Sephra Europe Ltd.
Sentence deferred
McCall admitted embezzling the money while an employee with the company at Sephra House, Denburn Road, Kirkcaldy.
The offending took place on various occasions between March 8 2019 and March 23 2020.
Sheriff Susan Duff deferred sentencing until May 5 for background reports and remanded McCall in custody.
Sephra’s website states it is the “most recognised and trusted name” in commercial chocolate fondue fountains, waffle bakers, crepe makers, popcorn and donut equipment and ingredients throughout the world.
The site describes the business being “pioneers” in the chocolate fountain industry.
For the latest court cases across Tayside and Fife, join our Courts Facebook page.
