A woman who embezzled £30,000 from her employer before lavishing herself with weekend trips and expensive meals has avoided going to prison after selling her house to settle the debt.
Nicola Milne, 38, swindled tens of thousands of pounds from family firm James Aiken Engineering Solutions despite being a loyal and trusted employee for nine years.
She was thought of as a “best pal” by bosses, who entrusted her with the company credit card.
But Milne breached that trust to funnel money from the firm to her own bank account over a seven-month period.
Milne paid herself double wages, booked weekends away and enjoyed meals at top hotels, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
At the time, one of the company’s directors, Neil Jolly, described her actions as a “betrayal in every sense of the word”.
Now, as it was confirmed that Milne had repaid all of the cash – along with an additional £10,000 through the sale of her house – the company said it was “absolutely delighted to finally reach closure on what has been a very unpleasant, frustrating and completely unnecessary experience”.
“It has taken three years, but through sheer determination and perseverance we achieved our objective in retrieving all our money,” the company told the P&J in a statement.
“All of which has been distributed to our loyal staff, who stuck with us during what was a very difficult period for the business.”
Accused used company card to fund her lifestyle
Fiscal depute Emma Petersen told the court that Milne had been employed at James Aiken Engineering Solutions as an office manager and had responsibility for processing all company transactions onto their accounting system.
She was given a company Mastercard, that had a credit limit of £5,000 and was understood to be for day-to-day expenses.
The account was used for paying suppliers and employees’ wages.
She also had the online banking application installed on her personal mobile phone so she could authorise payments up to the value of £10,000 on behalf of the firm.
Anything over £10,000 had to be authorised by Colin Gordon, who was the financial controller of the company.
In October 2021, Mr Gordon was going through the company accounts when he noticed a series of transactions he couldn’t explain, such as £155 for a meal at the Malmaison Hotel in Aberdeen.
He also noticed that £1,603 had also been put through as wages using the mobile banking application, which was an amount similar to Milne’s monthly salary.
A review of the company credit card statements found hundreds of unexplained transactions with purchases from Amazon, Deliveroo, Codonas, Home Essentials, Trainline, PayPal and various supermarkets.
Hundreds of transactions found
On November 25 2021 a disciplinary meeting was held with Milne where she admitted to making the bank transfers, citing her marriage breakup as the reason for her needing the money.
She was suspended from her job and the police were contacted.
“Colin Gordon thereafter produced a document detailing all of the transactions from the business bank account and from the credit card statement which he suspected to be fraudulent,” Ms Petersen said.
“The accused was provided with a copy of this document and was asked to highlight any transaction which was a genuine business transaction and identify transactions which were for her own personal gain.
“From the banking transactions relating to the company bank account, the accused identified 13 separate transactions amounting to £20,482 which were for her personal use.
“From the transactions made on the company Mastercard credit card, the accused identified transactions to the value of £10,354 as being for her own personal use.
“In total, while employed with James Aitken Engineering Solutions Ltd, the accused embezzled funds totalling £30,836.”
During a police interview, Milne told officers she had done it to “maintain her lifestyle after her marriage broke down” and admitted to paying her salary twice on more than one occasion.
In the dock, Milne, Mundurno Road, Bridge of Don, pleaded guilty to one charge of embezzlement.
‘She is a broken soul’
Defence solicitor Gregor Kelly described his client’s actions as a “serious breach of trust” on a family-run business who had trusted her.
He stated that when Milne’s marriage broke down that was when things started to “spiral out of control”.
“She had realised that as a single mother on a single income she was unable to maintain the life she had had as a couple,” Mr Kelly said.
“She began to use the company credit card to supplement her lifestyle and that’s when matters spiralled out of control – she is a broken soul.”
Sheriff Graham Buchanan also described Milne’s actions as a “significant breach of trust” against her former employer.
The sheriff continued: “However, you have sold your house to be able to repay the company from which you took this money.
“I take the view that it is not necessary or appropriate to impose a prison sentence, although I would have been entitled to give consideration to it.”
As an alternative to a prison sentence, Sheriff Buchanan made Milne subject to a community payback order with supervision and ordered her to carry out 225 hours of unpaid work.
For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen as well as crime and breaking incidents, join our Facebook group.