A Fife woman who stole £18,000 from an award-winning chocolate fountain firm has been jailed.
Elaine McCall, 51, previously admitted embezzling the money from Sephra Europe Ltd while an employee at the firm’s Kirkcaldy site, between March 2019 and March 2020.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard McCall was jailed for 16 months for a similar crime in 2005.
She appeared in the dock from custody to be sentenced for her latest theft.
Sheriff Susan Duff jailed her for 93 weeks, backdated to April 6, and told her she had “abused and breached” the trust of her employers for more than a year.
Discrepancies noticed during pandemic
Procurator fiscal depute Catherine Fraser told the court previously 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 of Spencerfield Road in Inverkeithing, was asked to investigate 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.
Falsified accounts
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.
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.
Accused opened ‘Pandora’s box’
Defence lawyer Alan Jackson said McCall’s position at the outset was it was “accidental” or “misunderstanding” about putting her own personal card details into something company related, which “opened Pandora’s box” and she could not stop.
Mr Jackson said his client had wanted to speak to her employer about what she’d done but felt she couldn’t, and felt “relief” when her actions were uncovered.
The solicitor said McCall also kept her behaviour hidden from family and that she had her own difficulties with mental health.
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.
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