Social workers will work for the next three months with a chip shop superviser who was caught pocketing her employer’s cash in a police sting operation.
Barbara Macrae sat trembling in the dock of Inverness Sheriff Court when she appeared for sentence before Sheriff Margaret Neilson.
The 48 year old had gone to trial denying she was a thief and had embezzled £5,550 from Lorimer’s Family Restaurant on Longman Road in Inverness between May and July last year.
But the 48-year-old of Mackay Road changed her plea to guilty of embezzling £956.70p from the business on July 9, the day she went to the bank to deposit three bags of takings.
The court heard that when she returned to the restaurant, she had one bag of takings in her handbag and had deposited only two.
Sheriff Neilson deferred sentence for a background report until yesterday.
Macrae’s defence lawyer Pauline Chapman had asked for a community based disposal for her client rather than jailing her.
However after reading the report, Sheriff Neilson decided to further defer sentence for Macrae to have social work intervention in her life.
But she told her: “All options are still open to the court.”
Macrae will re-appear on December 22.