Post Office manager 'lost £50,000'

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.theoxfordtimes.net/news/head ... 50_000.php

A POST Office manager has been spared jail after losing £50,000 of her employer's cash.

Margaret Sowinska, 46, admitted two counts of false accounting while working at a post office in Martin's newsagent, Banbury Road, in Summertown.

Sowinska, of Willow Way in Ambrosden, was given a 12-month suspended jail term at Oxford Crown Court.
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The money has never been found and charges of theft will lie on the file.

Judge Christopher Compston would not order Sowinska to pay compensation, but did leave the issue open for her employers to pursue a civil claim.

He said: "I am not saying you got away with £50,000, but on the other hand I am not saying you didn't.

"I cannot get blood from a stone and make a compensation order when you cannot pay it."

Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, told the court a surprise post office audit last October showed Sowinska wad changed banking records to hide a missing £50,260.91.

Colin McCarragher, defending Sowinska, said she was inexperienced at running the post office's books, had only two days accounting training and could not explain where the money had gone.

Judge Compston added: "This is a serious matter. You may have been muddled but if you had come clean to the post office and said this is beyond me you would not have got into the mess you are now in.

"Obviously, you should go to prison, but I will suspend it."

Sowinska was also ordered to do 150 hours' unpaid work and pay £500 costs.

4:30pm Monday 3rd December 2007

[dogfood]

Thats £331.73p an hour. Who says crime doesn't pay?

A fraction above AL and AC's hourly rate.