A bank worker jailed for stealing £120,000 from a wealthy customer she falsely accused of sexual assault is to be deported.
Satnam Kaur was jailed for a year in July after she failed to convince a sheriff she had been given the cash as “hush money”.
Sheriff Christopher Shead ruled she had swindled Robert Brown into signing a blank banker’s draft before plundering his account over a period of a month.
The Indian national paid the money into the account of another customer – Robert Mann – before forging his signature on a blank cheque which was deposited in her own Lloyds TSB account.
The theft happened at the Royal Bank of Scotland branch in Aberdeen’s Albyn Place and more than half the money was sent to an account in India.
None of the cash has been recovered and the bank had to compensate her victims.
Last night Kaur’s solicitor Mike Allan confirmed that his client was to be deported and is currently in Tarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedford waiting to be flown home.
The Home Office refused to comment on individual cases last night.
Kaur is due to appear at Aberdeen Sheriff Court today as the Crown tries to recover the cash she stole.
However, she failed to appear at a debate hearing set for earlier this month as efforts were ongoing to fly her out the country.
During the hearing Mr Allan told the court that it was unlikely she would ever be able to attend a court date fixed for the future and said she had no money left for the authorities to recover.
Last night north-east MSP and former shadow justice minister Lewis Macdonald said it was important that people who come to the UK and commit crime be deported, but added Kaur may literally get away with “robbing a bank”.
He said: “I think this illustrates just how difficult it can be to recover stolen property from criminals prepared to go to extreme lengths to secure ill gotten gains.
“It is important the Crown continues to try to recover the stolen money, however, in the circumstances, it is right to deport a foreign national who has committed a crime like this.
“I would want the authorities to explore every avenue in trying to recover the money as long as it does not prove too costly.
“If there are other measures they can take to track down the money in India then they should. It may be, on this occasion, she does indeed get away with robbing a bank.”