Cashier admits taking bogus wages

Caledonian Hotel is situated in Lothian Road

An Edinburgh hotel cashier paid herself more than £108,590 after inventing 10 fake employees and transferring their bogus wages into her bank accounts.

Janet Davis, 48, a paymaster for the Caledonian Hotel, admitted registering the made-up staff and having the cash paid into two of her accounts.

After tax and National Insurance, she admitted embezzling a total of £83,703 between April 2000 and October 2004.

Sentence was deferred until next month at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

She showed great remorse throughout the dealings with the police Fiscal Depute Lucy Proctor

In the elaborate scheme, Davis falsified paperwork, forged signatures and even invented time sheets.

A financial auditor became suspicious when she noticed that 10 different so-called Hilton Group employees were having their wages paid into only two different bank accounts.

She realised that all the signatures were in the same handwriting and that some of the payment forms were incomplete.

"This was highly irregular," Fiscal Depute Lucy Proctor told Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

"Mrs Davis was asked for an explanation. She could not provide one."

Family debts

Davis, of Livingston, West Lothian, telephoned the hotel and admitted the scheme. She did not return to work.

"She outlined exactly how she had carried out the fraud and said it had gone on for between four and five years," Ms Proctor said. "She could not say how much she had obtained and was formally dismissed.

"She freely admitted to police that she has falsified paperwork, made up fictitious employees and time sheets. She showed great remorse throughout the dealings with the police."

Davis told officers that she had mounted up family debts when her husband was laid off.

The court heard has repaid £1,400 and saved another £2,000 to hand over.

Defence agent Ian Bryce told Sheriff Andrew Lothian that he had ordered a psychiatric report on Davis.