A trusted manager at a busy veterinary surgery stole £50,000 in cash from the firm, a court was told. Charlotte Devonald also fraudulently spent thousands on a company fuel card using it to fill up her car and to pay for petrol for friends as well.
Swansea Crown Court heard the defendant only pleaded guilty on the day of trial, after one of the owners of the vets had left a family medical emergency in Australia to fly back to Wales to give evidence and had a “complete inability to face up to the reality of situation” she was in, reports WalesOnline.
Devonald’s barrister told the court his client’s inability to face up to what was going on extended to her not telling her daughter about her prosecution and the high likelihood she would not be returning home and would be going straight to prison.
He said breaking the news to the daughter was something that he would have to do after the hearing. James Hartson, prosecuting, told the court that the defendant began working as practice manager at the Animal Doctors veterinarian surgery in Clydach in the Swansea Valley in 2020 on a salary of £35,000 a year.
He said the owners of the business put their trust in the defendant and she was given responsibility for paying bills, sorting out the payroll for staff, liaising with suppliers and other outside firms, and banking the daily cash takings. However, the court heard that in November 2022 the firm’s accountants flagged up discrepancies in the figures for takings and deposits, and after the numbers were examined Devonald was suspended and the matter was reported to the police.
The court heard an investigation showed that between November 2020 and November 2022 the defendant had deposited around £50,000 of the company’s cash takings into her own bank account rather than paying it into the firm’s account via a series of cash deposits of between £100 and £1,000 a time. The court heard the investigation also found she had used a fuel payment card – given to her to cover her commute from home in Pembrokeshire to the Swansea Valley – for non-work purposes and had even paid for friends’ fuel with it. In total it was calculated there had been some £5,353 in fraudulent activity on the card.
In her subsequent police interview the defendant denied taking any cash and said she was not the only person at the vets practice with access to the office safe. She said she had on occasions paid for petrol for friends if they had given her a lift to work but denied any wrongdoing. For the latest court reports, sign up to our crime newsletter here.
In an impact statement which was read to the court the owners of the vets said it was a small business with tight margins in which “every penny counts” and said the actions of the defendant had put the business in jeopardy. They said they had been left in debt to suppliers with whom they had always enjoyed good relationships and in arrears to HM Revenue and Customs to whom they had owed £29,000 in pay-as-you-earn employer payments.
The owners said due to the uncertainty around the future of the business caused by Devonald, some of their long-term and valued employees had felt it necessary to seek work elsewhere, and said as the veterinarian community was a small one they had found it hard to recruit new staff. The statement concluded by saying they believed they were leaving the running of their business in safe hands and said the effect of what the defendant did were “devastating”.
They said they were working hard to repair the damage done by Devonald and they described the breach of trust as “incalculable”. Devonald, 44, of Cromwell Road, Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, had previously pleaded guilty on the day of trial to fraud by abuse of position and to theft when she returned to the dock for sentencing. She has one previous conviction for one unrelated offence.
Jon Tarrant, for Devonald, said the defendant was a “fragile and isolated” woman with a “complete inability to face up to reality of the situation” to such an extent that she had not told her daughter about her prosecution and court appearance and had not discussed with her the very real possibility that she would be going straight to prison and not returning home. The barrister said telling the defendant’s daughter about her mother’s incarceration was something that would fall on his shoulders after the hearing.
Mr Tarrant said the context of the offending were financial difficulties which his client had decided to try to solve in the way the court had heard about. The barrister added that Devonald had been “extremely emotional” during their conferences and that she wished, through him, to express her apologies for what she had done.
He also said the defendant had asked him to tell her daughter that she loved her. Judge Paul Thomas KC told the defendant that over a prolonged period she had abused the trust placed in her by the owners of the business to “brazenly and cynically” steal some £50,000.
He said the offending had caused financial difficulties and reputational damage to the vets, had led to long-term employees leaving, and had caused the owners a huge amount of stress and worry at a time when they were dealing with family health issues in Australia. He told the defendant that the fact she had not even told her daughter that she was facing prison was “another example of your cruel selfishness”.
With a 10 per cent discount for her guilty pleas Devonald was sentenced to three years in prison. She will serve up to half that sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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