A THIEVING hotel manager who stole more than £107,000 has been ordered by a judge to repay tens of thousands of pounds to his former employer from his pension fund.
During a seven-year period between 2011 and 2018, 58-year-old Stewart McIntosh plundered £100,588 from the coffers of the family-run Graham Arms in Longtown while he was a trusted and “integral part” of the enterprise with day-to-day responsibility for managing cash.
McIntosh made hundreds of separate illegal transactions by falsifying hand-written cash sheets which were required for accounting purposes. And, during 2018, he stole a further £6,650 from the business by failing to bank cash that he should have done, trying to “bamboozle and confuse” when quizzed as financial discrepancies began to emerge.
As McIntosh was jailed in January, having admitted theft and false accounting charges, Carlisle Crown Court heard his crimes “nearly destroyed” the business from which he’d since been sacked. Family members had to inject large sums of their own money and were left with a tax bill for income which they never saw because McIntosh had stolen it.
Under tough Proceeds of Crime legislation, police sought to wrestle back McIntosh’s ill-gotten gains.
And at Carlisle Crown Court this morning (THURS), prosecutor Peter Horgan announced that McIntosh had benefited from his offending to the tune of £115,553.75. Painstaking scrutiny of the thief’s finances by investigators showed his assets amounted to £73,614.56. “That sum,” Mr Horgan submitted, “should be paid as compensation to the victim in the case, which is the Graham Arms Hotel in Longtown.”
The majority of that asset figure comprised pension policies, revealed the prosecutor, who stressed the final sum may differ once those policies were sold.
The amounts were not disputed by legal representatives of McIntosh, who was not present at today’s remote hearing. Graham Arms family members did attend by dialling in using Skype.
Judge Nicholas Barker ruled that if the money was not handed over within three months, McIntosh would face 18 months’ imprisonment in default.
Judge Barker concluded: “I will make an order that the defendant pay £73,614.56, or whatever the sum may be after the policies have been released, to the Graham Arms Limited.”
