A security guard who stole £20,000 worth of takings he collected from supermarkets was caught red-handed after a trap was laid at Stone’s Morrisons supermarket.
Group 4 van driver Stuart Grey would park up after collecting cash from Morrisons, Asda or Somerfield and remove a bundle containing £1,000, Stafford Crown Court heard on 28th October.
He was caught when Morrisons launched an internal investigation over missing money and laid a trap with marked notes from its store in Stone. Pat Sullivan, prosecuting, said a collection from Stone in April was £1,000 short when it reached the company’s headquarters.
Police carried out a search of the defendant’s Stoke-on-Trent home and found £460 of the company’s money hidden in a washing machine and a mug, plus a bank deposit slip for £260.
Grey explained how he had been stealing cash. He said he drove away from the store, pulled over a short distance away, opened up sealed plastic bags and took one bundle of notes containing £1,000. Grey had done it a total of 20 times over a period of 14 months from January last year. How he got away with it for so long was yet to be explained.
Grey, aged 31, of Harpfield Road, Hartshill, admitted five charges of theft and asked for nine others to be taken into consideration.
He was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, and was told to do 150 hours of unpaid community work.
Recorder Sally Hancox said: “People like you should be in court giving evidence about thefts, not being the cause of it. You expect to handle thousands and thousands of pounds, day-in, day-out, and you were expected to look after it, not park up and nick £1,000 of it. You do deserve to go to prison, but I am going to suspend the sentence.”
Kevin Mortlock, defending, said: “It was an unsophisticated offence and would have been traced back to him as the sole driver of the van. He is out of work as a natural consequence of this.”
