Fife woman swindled £96k from children’s charity and coffee firm

A Fife woman swindled £96,000 in her roles as treasurer of a children’s charity and business manager at a family-run coffee company.

Beverley Bennie stole £12,771 from Kids Come First, which offers affordable wraparound care at the Benarty Centre in Ballingry, through unauthorised bank transfers to her personal account between December 7 2020 and September 24 2021.

She also pocketed £83,599 from Kirkcaldy-based Myrtle Coffee, a small business which supplies wholesale coffee and vending services, between September 28 2017 and September 1 last year.

The 37-year-old, of Kirkland Gardens, Ballingry, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to plead guilty to two charges of embezzlement.

Sheriff John MacRitchie warned the first offender prison will be in the “uppermost of considerations” when she returns to court for sentencing next year.

The sheriff said: “Particularly in view of the amount involved in charge one and the appalling nature of charge two involving a charity.

“I also recognise the coffee services (company) is a family business.”

Kids club con

Prosecutor Sarah Smith told the court Bennie became treasurer at Kids Come First in August 2018 and had oversight of the charity’s financial matters, with access to two bank accounts.

Her children attended the centre.

In October 2021, a manager at the charity was advised there were limited funds in the bank accounts and staff could not be paid.

This happened again in November and December and Bennie said she had transferred £400 of her own money to the account to assist with the wage shortfall.

The manager, who was not allocated a budget or given any financial updates about the running of the charity, became suspicious.

During an emergency committee meeting in January 2022 it emerged the club was in “financial crisis” with no funds.

Accounts had not been submitted for audit for the previous three years and as a result, no applications could be made for funding.

The committee was dissolved and reformed.

Bennie, who tried to return as treasurer, received no votes.

She was asked to provide the charity with account information but failed to do so.

Concerns were reported to Fife Council, which instructed a forensic accountant who established “a number of unauthorised cash transfers” made by Bennie to her personal account, totalling £12,771.69.

The court heard Bennie did repay £1,590 into the accounts, leaving the charity with a loss of £11,181.69.

Coffee firm swindle

Bennie was also employed as a business manager at Myrtle Coffee, in Kirkcaldy’s Oswald Road, from 2016.

She worked in the finance office with two colleagues with remote access to company systems and responsibility for petty cash and electronic cash accounts.

The court heard some petty cash, vending machine takings, money from customer sales and a fixed £20,000 float, was held within a secure safe Bennie “regularly had unmonitored access to”.

After Bennie gave a “vague response” to being questioned over cash records, colleagues counted the safe money and found no petty cash in it and an apparent £700 shortfall from the fixed float.

The next day, Bennie began acting “erratically” when informed by colleagues they would all count the money and she left the office for a period before returning with bags of money she added to the count.

Bennie went to the office the following, non-working, day and “spent a number of hours going in and out of the safe,” the fiscal said.

As a result, her colleagues did another count the next morning and found the total in the safe to be £7,610. This was reported to company bosses.

Interviews between the directors and finance office staff were arranged but Bennie advised a colleague she needed to leave before her interview.

She failed to return to work the next day and did not respond to contact from the directors.

Four-year fraud

Initial checks suggested Bennie had been reversing transactions so they showed as unpaid so cash actually paid would be unaccounted for.

The fiscal depute said: “Some of these transactions had been reversed during the night and non-working days.”

She also transferred funds between accounts, which caused difficulties in detection of funds.

The fiscal said a “deep financial audit” was carried out, which showed Bennie had carried out a “number of fraudulent transactions” over the near-six-year offending period.

Ms Smith continued: “She had inflated the values of genuine receipts, reversed transactions, duplicated genuine receipts, fabricated receipts, created false accounts, as well as many other methods, to reduce and manipulate the petty cash balance.

“This allowed her to make transfers to herself and take payments out of the petty cash.”

A check of Bennie’s personal account showed transactions from the electronic account and numerous large cash deposits.

The fiscal added: “The total money obtained by the accused was £83,599.93.”

Bennie was arrested on December 20 2023 at her home, when she advised her husband: “It’s about that money from Myrtle, it was only a matter of time.”

Prison warning

Sentencing was adjourned until January 10 to obtain background reports.

Sheriff MacRitchie said he would allow bail with “some hesitation” but warned Bennie not to read that as indicative of her sentence.

He said: “You should make arrangements to sort matters out”.

The Crown also made a motion for confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

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