Office manager who scammed Scottish Power out of £176k jailed
A ‘callous’ office manager who conned employers Scottish Power out of £176,000 has been jailed.
Emma Hunt, 40, forged invoices and used company credit accounts to buy goods to scam the power giant of the huge sum while employed as a project administrator over a 30 month period.
Hunt bought an incredible £67,000 worth of iPhones that she sold on, treated herself to expensive goods and services from John Lewis and Hilton Hotels and splashed out £4,800 with car hire firms.
The office boss also swindled cash from charities including the Multiple Sclerosis Society by making small donations on behalf of the company and claiming back much larger amounts on her expenses.
Following her arrest police discovered a haul of designer handbags and shoes within the scam artist’s home and she later told officers she had been “living a double life for years”.
Hunt provided a false reference to gain employment with Scottish Power and was eventually caught out when bosses saw media reports of Hunt being jailed for conning a previous employer in 2023. She was sentenced to a three year prison term after a jury found her guilty of embezzling £899,164.77 from an Edinburgh property firm between 2016 and 2019.
She was subsequent released from custody on licence in February last year but was jailed again when she failed to repay an agreed sum of £211,436.91 under Proceeds of Crime legislation.
Hunt, from Coldstream, Scottish Borders, was sentenced to a further custodial period of two years and 271 days in January this year. She returned to the dock from custody at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday, March 13, and admitted forming a fraudulent scheme to obtain goods and cash to the value of £176,00 while employed by Scottish Power between January 25, 2021 and July 22, 2023.
Fiscal depute Xander van der Scheer read a prepared written narration to the court stating Hunt had been employed by Scottish Power through an employment agency in January 2021.
The fiscal said her job application was later found to contain “a false reference” and her duties as a project administrator included organising meetings and buying items for company events. The court heard Hunt set up corporate credit accounts with companies without authorisation and she altered and forged invoices after arranging for them to be sent to her personal email address.
Mr van der Scheer said Hunt was tasked with making a £500 donation to the Multiple Sclerosis Society in memory of a former employee in February 2022.
The fiscal said: “Emma Hunt sent an email to a colleague confirming a donation of £500 had been made to the MS Society and passing on her condolences to the family of the deceased.” But it later emerged she only donated £10 and had claimed the full amount back in her expenses.
The court heard Hunt also made a donation of just £15 to the World Wildlife Fund charity on behalf of the company and had been reimbursed with £320.
Hunt spent thousands of pounds on hiring vehicles for her own use including a Land Rover Discovery and had “purchased at least 47 mobile phones, specifically Apple iPhones retailing between £800 and £1749 each”.
The fiscal added: “Emma Hunt ordered Apple iPhones from the retailers John Lewis and Curry’s alone, most paid for using gift vouchers. Emma Hunt then sold these mobile phones through various means to generate income.”
The fiscal said the crook had been spending “significantly beyond” someone earning £23,345 per year and her “excessive spending stopped once she was incarcerated.”
Advocate Simon Whyte , defending, told the court his client had shown “genuine insight and remorse” into the offences and had been deemed “medium risk of re-offending” in the future.
Sheriff Charles Walls said: “Your criminal actions spanned a period of two and a half years. This was not a one off opportunistic crime, on the contrary you executed a sophisticated scheme.”
The sheriff described the offences as of a “callous and sophisticated nature” and imposed a total custodial sentence of 634 days to run consecutive to her current prison term.
Faith Currie, Procurator Fiscal for Edinburgh, Lothian & Borders, said: “Emma Hunt deceived her employer and fundamentally abused their trust by stealing large sums of money to fund an affluent lifestyle.
“She believed that her offending would go undetected, however she again faces the consequences of her criminal conduct. Fraud and embezzlement are not victimless crimes. This was a brazen example of targeting a sizeable company and, more broadly, its customers.
“Financial crime cases can be complex, but the evidence presented by prosecutors made her criminal activity clear and resulted in a conviction. This case demonstrates the ability of prosecutors to effectively prepare and prosecute financial crimes of this nature and should send a strong message to others involved in this kind of criminal activity.”