In a new development that will come as a shock for Australian businesses, an employee of SKM Recycling has been jailed for having swindled $168,000 from the company. The employee in question, Delwyn Burgess siphoned off company money and then transferred it to personal accounts. She was employed as a financial officer at the company and has now been sentenced to a 6 months jail term by the authorities. The Melbourne Country Court also stated that Burgess will have to do 300 hours’ worth of community work and will have to go through a community corrections order that will last for two years.
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When interrogated by the police, Burgess has stated that it was a ‘dumb move’ on her part. The whole scheme had been going on through 2016 and 2017. It has emerged that Burgess had made spurious payroll accounts and then made as many as 98 payments straight to her personal account. Despite the fact that the payments had been made to her personal account, Burgess recorded them as payments that had been made to a total of 25 employees at the company.
Judge Felicity Hampel, who presided over the case, stated that Burgess used the money for her living expenses and also to pay off a debt originating from road toll. The judge went on to state that her actions were not motivated by need but by greed. Burgess pleaded guilty and despite the fact that her lawyer stated that she did this to provide a better life to her son, it did not cut any ice with the judge. When this point was raised, the judge said,
Your child is not complicit in your wrongdoing and he should not be made to feel so by such justifications.
