Limavady: 'Insatiable greed' of woman who defrauded company of more than £450K

A Limavady woman who stole £452,787 over a decade from her employer has been handed a three-year sentence.

Norma Smyth, 48, stole and defrauded Edwin May Ltd of more than £3,000 every month for 11 and a half years.

She was ordered to serve half that sentence in jail and half under supervised licence conditions.

Smyth had asked her manager for a pay rise while defrauding the firm, a step the judge said demonstrated her "insatiable level of greed".

At Antrim Crown Court on Tuesday, the judge told her she had exploited her position of trust in the car dealership where she worked.

The judge said "realistically, it would not have been possible for this level of misappropriation and theft to have gone on, and gone on undetected for as long as it did and for so many years" without the defendant being in the position she was and exploiting it for her own ends.

Double life

He said that unlike other fraud offences, there was nothing in Smyth's life such as drug or alcohol addiction, gambling debts, or mental health issues to motivate or necessitate stealing such "vast amounts" of cash.

The judge noted that her children had been affected but added that there may be "something of an inevitably in that" given the fact that Smyth, for many years, "chose to live effectively a double life".

He said on one hand she had been a "hardworking and no doubt devoted wife, mother, home maker and churchgoer" who was at the same time a "skilled, persistent and accomplished fraudster and thief".

The charges spanned from 1 February 2008 to 6 November 2019.

Smith, of Duncrun Road in Limavady, County Londonderry, admitted stealing and that she abused her position of trust within the car dealership by accessing company accounts to apply company funds to the value of £14,962 in settlement of "personal invoices and car finance repayments."

The prosecution outlined that in December 2019 the Edwin May group's financial advisor noticed that of the three branches, only the Coleraine branch was operating at a loss on Motability cars.

The lawyers said the financial advisor had investigated and noted that Volkswagen had paid bonuses relating to metallic paint costs to Coleraine Edwin May every month but these costs had not been transferred to the correct accounts.

At a work meeting the defendant initially claimed she had properly transferred the money to four nominated accounts but when pushed on the matter and asked to provide documentary proof, "she admitted that she had in fact stolen money," the court heard.

A lawyer described how Smyth transferred credits and bonuses to accounts where customers' cash payments were lodged and she would then withdraw the cash.

The court heard "there were a number of vehicles purchased from Edwin May in the name of Mrs Smyth or her husband" but the defendant abused her position of trust in that "records show that a significant amount of the account for each vehicle was paid for by transferring money from the Road Tax refund account".

'Better quality of life'

She was questioned by police in December 2019 and again in May 2021.

The defendant admitted she had been stealing funds but could not put a figure on the amount.

Her lawyer said his instructions were that "it's quite simply a case of providing a better lifestyle within the family home and buying things for the family, clothes for herself and in giving the family a better quality of life over this years."

He said his client had been married for 22 years, had a good work record until now and a clear criminal record, as well as admitting her guilt at the earliest opportunity.

'Sense of betrayal'

In jailing Smyth, the judge said the guidelines were clear that in cases of such a "gross" abuse of trust, matters of personal mitigation carried less weight than in other cases.

In sentencing remarks he said her behaviour had also adversely affected her colleagues and the firm's Coleraine branch, with the director having "multiple sleepless night" over the stress of the financial viability of the vehicle showroom and the manager offering his resignation after the thefts were uncovered.

He said everyone connected with the showroom had been left with a "sense of betrayal".

They felt that the thefts had "impacted the reputation and standing of the company in the community [and] the business has been tarnished by association" so they will have to work to regain the public's trust because of her.

The judge said there were multiple aggravating factors to Smyth's protracted and "not unsophisticated offending", including the effect on the victims and the fact that the level of trust reposed in her had been significant.

He took her early guilty pleas, admissions and the undue delay in getting the case to court into account.

As well as the three-year sentence, split half and half between jail and licence, Smyth will also face confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act.