A thieving manageress from an Altrincham Sainsbury’s was jailed for 12 months today after she held onto cash donations earmarked for a soldier who lost both legs in Afghanistan.
Alison Potts, 51, had been entrusted with the money after workmates organised a whip-round for the injured squaddie whose grandparents worked in the store.
But Potts, commercial manager on the customer service desk at the Altrincham branch in Greater Manchester, failed to hand over the £200 after it was collected in a bucket in the staff canteen.
Instead she repeatedly fobbed off the serviceman’s grandmother and came up with various excuses when she was later asked about the cash three months after the collection.
An embarrassed colleague eventually paid the money himself after being told by Potts to take the cash out of the till. The serviceman’s family passed the money to the Help for Heroes charity.
Police were called in and discovered Potts carried out 254 cash refunds worth £5,000 between March 2010 and February 2011 when customers were not present during the transactions.
Potts, who had worked for Sainsbury’s for 25 years, would login to tills for just a few minutes at a time and often put through refunds, mainly for bottles of wine, at a rate of more than one every 30 seconds, often billing more than £100 in less than 15 minutes.
She had also held onto £70 which had been given to her by colleagues towards a works trip to London.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Potts of Bowdon was found guilty of two counts of fraud and two counts of theft, but was cleared of actually stealing the money earmarked for the soldier.
Judge Bernard Lever told her: “It was your job to check that other people didn’t steal money not to steal money yourself. That is what makes this such a flagrant breach of trust case.
”It wasn’t the amount of money that was important but you took the bucket and got the cashier to change it into notes and the despicable thing was that you held on to that money.
”The grandmother repeatedly asked you where the money was and you fobbed them off.
The judge went on to say that Potts did everything in her power to try and delay paying the £200, regardless of the injured soldier receiving the money eventually.
“Your disgrace has been very public owing to the delay in paying of the money for the young man who was injured in Afghanistan,” Judge Lever said.
”If it hadn’t been for your despicable behaviour I might have contemplated suspending this term. But it is wrong and impossible for me to do so having regard to this case in the round.”
The court heard how store worker Patricia Harrison, who worked on the Deli counter at Sainsbury’s, took a week off work when she learned in December 2010 that her soldier grandson Jason had been hurt.
She said she learned about the collection when she returned to work at the store, where she had been employed for nine years.
Staff had placed a collection bucket in the canteen and raised about £200.
Suspicions began to surface after Potts took the bucket and got the cashier to change it into notes before taking the money to her office.
During the court case Mrs Harrison, whose husband David also worked at the store, told the jury: “I had to keep going to Alison Potts and ask when she was going to give me the collection money.
“I didn’t like to ask, ‘Have you got the money?’ I did say ‘I believe there’s a collection’ and she said ‘I’ve got to count it’. She used to say ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ or ‘I’ll see you next week’. She did say, ‘I’ve got to count it’.”
Asked how often she had asked about the collection, Mrs Harrison replied: “It was quite a few times” and added: “People in the store thought I had already got the collection money and they were shocked when they found out so many weeks afterwards.
“I must have asked her at least 12 times but there was always some excuse.”
Another member of staff, Phil Walker, told the jury he had approached Mrs Potts about the collection and she had told him to ‘get it out of the till’.
Staff told senior managers at Sainsbury’s about their concerns and Potts, who had worked for the company for 25 years, was suspended. She has since left the company.
Potts said she had been keeping the collection bucket in her locker and had not produced the cash because the fundraising was ‘ongoing’.
She said: “It was not hidden. I was waiting for donations from members of the night staff who had told me they wanted to contribute. I took the collection bucket away because it didn’t need to stay out.”
In mitigation defence counsel Miss Rachel Faux said: “She is a respected member of the family and has shown a great deal of kindness and in that context it can be said these offences come out of character.
”There is a history of personal difficulty she has had against a background of family tragedy and her own mental and emotional stability.Things have been sent to her address as well as deliberately targeted junk mail.
“She has felt hugely punished by her involvement but she looks forward with a sense of determination to get back and re-establish her reputation as a trusted member of the community who has much to give.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “We regard any crime of this nature very seriously and have robust processes in place to prevent such activities occurring.”
Image courtesy of freefoto, with thanks
