Man embezzled £500,000 from employer to fund gambling addiction

A man took £500,000 from the company he worked for to fund his gambling addiction.

Lee Currie, 34, was the financial controller for environmental consulting firm Mabbett & Associates Limited for six years.

Currie was employed by the Glasgow-based company and had full access to the business bank accounts.

He abused his position of trust to empty the firm’s funds between November 2019 and March 2021.

Bosses “trusted” Currie to an extent that they wrongly believed the bank had made an error when the offence came to light.

However, Currie later handed himself in to the police and told them he had “committed a crime.”

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that the firm was in the process of being sold at the time.

As a result, a due diligence process took place on the company’s four bank accounts.

The managing director asked Currie to produce company bank statements.

Prosecutor Danielle McGuinness said: “A task that should have taken minutes to complete took a while.

“Currie had to be chased up for this simple request.”

Currie produced a bank statement which showed a balance of £423,942.19.

It was then decided by the company directors to merge all the bank accounts together.

Clydesdale Bank told the company that three of the company accounts contained £8.17, £7.20 and £7.31.

Ms McGuinness said: “The statement from the bank was believed to be false.

“The company had expected an accumulation of around £400,000 in their bank account.

“They still believed there had been an administration error on behalf of the bank.”

Currie was instructed to sort out the discrepancies, but he was absent from work, which the firm believed was “strange.”

The firm was then told by police that Currie had embezzled an initial figure of £400,000.

Currie told police before he was arrested: “I used my position to steal £400,000 to fund a gambling addiction.“

The firm’s banking was further investigated, and the full amount of £507,485.18 was found to have been taken by Currie.

Ms McGuinness stated: “There had been evidence that Currie had abused his position of trust as a financial controller.”

Currie, of the city’s Pollok, pleaded guilty on Friday to a single charge of embezzlement.

Michael Poggi, defending, told the court: “He instructs me to unequivocally apologise to those who had trusted him for the catastrophic error of judgment he made.”

Sentence was deferred on the now retail customer services worker until next month, pending background reports by Sheriff Joan Kerr, who continued Currie’s bail meantime.