Devon Woman Steals £50,000

To bankroll her fruit machine addiction a woman from Devon stole £50,000 from her employer, she has been found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison.

Forty seven year old Tracey Spilsbury who hails from Paignton has worked as a cashier for the last couple of years at the Dart Steam. This thieving lass stole more than 50% of her employer’s yearly profit between April and September this year, amounting to a whopping £45,972.  Talk about a bad case of problem gambling! She has been sentenced by the Exeter Crown court and has one dependant.

According to prosecutor Mark Barton, Ms Spilsbury’s work at the railway entailed collecting all the cash from the various cashiers and locking it away in the company’s safe. When she was apprehended by police at her residence, the police found a meagre a £150 in cash at her home. All the cash had been wagered on fruit machines, she informed the police she was trying to win back the funds she stole.

Unfortunately for her Mr Barton said: “The entire ordeal has spiralled out of control”. “Not a penny of the cash stolen has been spent on either her or her family but every single penny of it has been fed into the greedy fruit machines.” The court had been informed that Ms Spilsbury has a severe case of problem gambling and that she even played two gaming machines.

Sad Case

Gareth Evans the defence barrister for the case said: “She was taken entirely by surprise as a result of her theft and dishonesty, nobody got wind of what Ms Spilsbury was up to and she had no intentions of spending the cash stolen in any other way.

“She didn’t expect to get away with it and always expected that the police would apprehend her sooner or later.” The Judge for the case David Tyzack QC said: “Indeed this is a very sad case”.

“You were very deceitful and calculated in the manner on how you stole a very hefty amount of cash.”

“Apart from you being the loser in this entire ordeal to date-pun intended, your employer can simply not afford to have lost such a substantial amount of cash, the downside of it all they will never get the cash back.”