A Halfords shop boss who embezzled £90,000 from bosses in a crooked cashing-up scam in Perth has been ordered to pay back just £1 under proceeds of crime legislation.
Gary Ridgewell pocketed money from the till while he was manager of the retail giant’s St Catherine’s Retail Park store.
He attempted to cover his tracks by using doctored customer coupons to balance the books.
He was eventually caught when an internal probe highlighted suspicious activity at the shop, as well as the Dumbarton branch where Ridgewell worked previously.
The 51-year-old was jailed for 30 months when he appeared at Perth Sheriff Court in September.
He returned to the dock on Thursday after prosecutors launched proceedings to claw back the stolen cash.
His solicitor David Holmes confirmed the case had been settled prior to the hearing.
Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC imposed a joint confiscation and compensation order for the “available amount” of one pound.
The nominal sum is agreed under proceeds of crime legislation if the accused has no assets.
Doctored customer coupons
The court heard that Ridgewell, from Doune, Stirlingshire, had stolen the cash to feed a lifelong gambling addiction.
Before taking the top job at the Perth Halfords in April 2016, he was manager at Dumbarton from September 2010.
There, he noticed 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,” prosecutor Callum Gordon previously told the court.
“He realised that cash could be removed from the till, without formally being withdrawn, and the total recorded balance would match the physical balance.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.”
The scam went unnoticed until Halfords’ fraud investigator launched an nationwide probe, sparked by a non-related issue at another branch.
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.
Ridgewell came clean when questioned by employers.
He pled guilty to embezzling between January 2013 and March 2018.
At his sentencing, Sheriff Alison McKay described the offence as a “significant breach of trust”.
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