PO manager 'stole 157k from work, charity and OAP'

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Post office manager 'stole £157,000 from work, charity and OAP'

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A former post office manager has denied stealing from a community charity project in an embezzlement scam totalling £157,000.

Carol Oswald has been accused of embezzling almost £140,000 from her workplace over the course of five years.

The 53-year-old has also been accused of stealing thousands of pounds from an 81-year-old woman and from a community environmental charity.

She appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on Tuesday to deny all the charges against her.

It is alleged that Oswald embezzled £139,051.12 from Letham Post Office at Rannoch Road in Perth while in a position of trust as manager of the branch between January 1, 2008, and December 6, 2012.

She is also accused of helping herself to £10,518 from Letham Climate Challenge while in a position of trust as a trustee of the charity project between November 4, 2011, and November 30, 2012.

Oswald, of Grange Terrace in Perth, further denies stealing £8059.80 from Jean Johnson, 81, at her home and at Harley Place in Perth between October 7, 2010, and December 3, 2012.

Bail was continued prior to a trial later this year.

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Letham Post Office boss Carol Oswald jailed for embezzlement

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Carol Oswald claimed she was gambling in a bid to pay the Post Office back

A Post Office manager who stole more than £100,000 from her work, a charity and an elderly friend has been jailed for more than three years.

Sub-post office boss Carol Oswald, 53, from Perth, spent the money on internet betting and claimed she was trying to win money to pay the business back.

She also stole more than £8,000 from the elderly post office owner and embezzled about £2,300 from a charity.

She had worked at Letham Post Office since the 1980s.

Perth Sheriff Court heard that as well as stealing directly from 81-year-old Jean Johnson, Oswald also left the pensioner liable for the £100,000 she had embezzled from the branch.

Solicitor Cliff Culley said: "The reality is that she wasn't capable of looking after the Post Office and it ran into financial difficulties.

"She had difficulties dealing with that and unfortunately gambled money in the hope that the winnings would resolve the financial difficulties.

"That gambling took the form of small bets, up to £100 at a time, on the internet."

He added: "The money was taken from the Post Office account and put into her account and she gambled it. She just felt totally out of control.

"It wasn't a sophisticated, pre-planned fraud. She was out of her depth.

"She wasn't funding an extravagant lifestyle. She didn't have holidays. She lived in fear of being found out and it was inevitable she would be found out."

Oswald had been taking money to fund her online gambling debts for almost five years before she was caught. An investigation found that thousands more had gone missing.

She was found to have conned an environmental charity in the local housing estate where she had been a well-known and trusted pillar of the community.

She had been handpicked by the local residents association when they formed the Letham Climate Challenge charity to help set it up as a registered charity pursuing green initiatives for the community.

Oswald had been asked to set up a bank account for the charity but it emerged she had kept the tax payments she was due to make on its sole employee's behalf.


Position of trust

Oswald admitted embezzling £100,000 from Letham Post Office while she was in a position of trust as manager between 1 January 2008 and 6 December 2012.

She further admitted embezzling £2,367.36 from the Letham Climate Challenge while she was in a position of trust as a trustee of the charity.

Oswald also admitted stealing £8,059.80 belonging to Mrs Johnson at her own address and a house in Harley Place, Perth, between 7 October 2010 and 3 December 2012.

The court was told Mrs Johnson had owned the sub-post office and had trusted her friend and colleague Oswald to take over when she became too frail to run the business.
Oswald helped herself to thousands of pounds from Mrs Johnson's personal bank account.

Jailing Oswald for three years and four months, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said: "Your actions placed the old lady under a cloud of suspicion. All these charges - which covered five years - displayed a very significant and clear breach of trust.
"They resulted in very significant sums being misappropriated by yourself. The problem with people who embezzle is that they don't think of anyone but themselves."

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Post Office embezzler must pay back £100,000 to victims


Carol Oswald: Abused trust of friends and colleagues (file pic).PPA
A Post Office manager who embezzled more than £110,000 from her employer, a local charity and an elderly woman has been ordered to pay £100,000 of it back.

Carol Oswald, 53, admitted the five-year period of deception at Perth Sheriff Court in April last year.

The Crown launched a Proceeds of Crime action against her and on Wednesday she was told to pay the compensation.

It represents the entirety of her current assets and will be divided up between her victims or their nearest relatives.

Lindsey Miller, procurator fiscal for Organised Crime and Counter-Terrorism, said: "Carol Oswald abused the trust of her friends and colleagues, undermining their businesses and charitable endeavours, purely in order to line her own pockets.

"The age and vulnerability of some of her victims and even the fact that some of them had since sadly died did not prevent Oswald from being brought to justice.

"Prosecutors no longer look solely at securing a conviction. Wherever an accused has profited from breaking the law we do all we can to ensure they repay that money, and today’s order means that Oswald’s entire estate will be divided up between her victims or their nearest relatives."

Oswald was employed as manager of Letham Post Office in Perth and was responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.

In 2011, the sub-postmaster died and his wife, then aged 79 but now also deceased, took up the role.

The following year, concerns were raised about late payment and delayed acceptance of cash transfers, and the Post Office security department instructed an audit of the business.

It revealed the accused had embezzled £100,000 and taken numerous steps to mask her trail and disguise the shortfall, including creating fictitious cash transfers and falsifying documentation.

The owner of the Post Office had also entrusted the accused to assist her with her banking affairs.

When the charges in relation to the Post Office came to light, she checked her bank account and discovered unauthorised transactions totalling £8060 had been made into an account associated with Oswald.

The accused was also found to have embezzled £2367 from the Letham Climate Challenge charity.

She initially joined the group as a volunteer and in 2011 became a trustee, responsible for setting up a bank account for the charity and managing finances and payments.

The other members and trustees repeatedly asked to see bank statements but the accused failed to provide them and made excuses as to why she had not brought them to group meetings.

After the circumstances at the Post Office came to light, the other trustees repeatedly attempted to contact the accused seeking information and documentation in relation to the accounts but received no response.

On contacting banks and the HMRC to obtain details of the accounts, they were informed that no such accounts existed.

On May 19, 2015, Oswald was sentenced to three years and four months in prison.