The boss of a Tayside Halfords branch swindled the company out of £90,000 with a crooked cashing-up scam.
Manager Gary Ridgewell pocketed cash from the till and then doctored customer coupons to balance the books.
His scheme ran for more than five years while he was boss at Halford branches in Perth and Dumbarton.
He was caught out when the firm launched a nationwide investigation and found suspicious activity at both of his workplaces.
Ridgewell, 50, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted embezzling cash from the company between January 2013 and March 2018.
He was originally charged with pilfering around £178,000 but prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to the reduced sum of £90,000.
Ridgewell, who said he stole the cash to feed a gambling habit, was warned he could be jailed.
Took advantage of cashing-up ‘anomaly’
Prosecutor Callum Gordon said Ridgewell became manager of the Dumbarton branch in September 2010.
He moved to the Perth shop in St Catherine’s Retail Park on April 9 2016.
“He was employed there as store manager until March 7 2018, when he was suspended in light of the allegations,” Mr Gordon said.
While at Dumbarton, Ridgewell discovered an “anomaly” when registering customer coupons.
“The accused realised that by artificially increasing the value of the coupon, the cash balance would be higher than the physical cash balance in the till,” the fiscal depute said.
“He realised that cash could be removed from the till, without formally being withdrawn, and the total recorded balance would match the physical balance.
“He also found that if there was not enough cash in the till to facilitate the removal of cash, he could transfer money from the safe.”
His scam went unnoticed until Halfords launched an internal investigation in all its stores in February 2018.
The court heard the probe, led by the company’s national fraud investigator, was sparked by a non-related issue with missing money.
As part of the inquiry, all shop managers were asked to produce a report of their safe balances.
The investigator found the Perth store had the highest balance, followed by Dumbarton because of the high number of bogus coupons Ridgewell had registered.
Money went into gambling
“It led to the uncovering of the accused’s actions,” said Mr Gordon.
“The investigator found that coupons had resulted in increases in safe balances at Dumbarton, which stopped when the accused left.
“The balance began to rise in Perth after the accused had been transferred.”
CCTV was recovered from the Perth store.
“On one occasion, it showed the accused taking money from the till and placing it in his pocket, while logging the transaction,” said the fiscal depute.
Ridgewell was interviewed by bosses and confessed.
“He admitted he used this method on a regular basis and increased the amount of money over time.
“The accused said he had a gambling problem and that he had used some of the money to support it.”
Ridgewell was sacked after a disciplinary hearing in March 2018.
All sentencing options open
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, asked the court to defer sentence for background reports.
“He will do his very best to obtain funds to repay the money,” he said.
Sheriff Alison McKay told Ridgewell: “You will appreciate this is a serious charge and a gross breach of trust with a large sum of money involved.
“I am afraid that at this stage all potential disposals are before the court for consideration.”
Ridgwell, of Leny Road, Deanston, Doune, will be sentenced next month.
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