A sheriff branded a serial scam artist “devious” as he jailed her for stealing cash from her workplace.
Charlotte Roche was found guilty back in May of stealing thousands of pounds from an Aberdeen car dealership.
Her latest conviction came just months after she was spared jail in England for scamming her ex-boyfriend out of more than £14,000 pounds by convincing him she had cancer.
She also pocketed 30,000 Euros from her former-employers back in her native Ireland in a previous con involving another car garage.
Despite her two previous convictions elsewhere in the UK, Roche – who denied the latest charge – was said by prosecutors to be a first time offender when she appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court earlier this year. The apparent Crown blunder led to Sheriff Eric Brown saying “the court’s hands were tied” when it came to sentencing.
The sheriff was forced to ignore her criminal past and imposed a four month jail sentence.
Roche, 31, was found guilty after a three day trial of stealing more than £3,000 while working for John Clark BMW garage between November and December 2014.
During the trial the court heard that garage boss Raymond Henderson grew suspicious of the service assistant after she suddenly took ill with a ruptured abdominal ulcer on December 16, 2014, and was rushed to hospital – just after he was informed of missing customer payments.
A number of witnesses claimed to have handed over cash for garage services to a woman matching Roche’s description in the weeks before her hospitalisation.
However, the accounts department later found the money and invoice slips were missing from the petty cash box – all of which should have been deposited in Roche’s name.
The sheriff brought up the previous cases involving Roche in England and Ireland and demanded an investigation into why the court was not made aware of her criminal history.
Sheriff Brown said Roche had abused her position of trust with her employers and exploited weaknesses in the cash handling system at the BMW garage in Aberdeen.
He described her as a “devious and manipulative” individual who had been “economical with the truth”.