A BAKERY boss embezzled thousands of pounds from Greenock company Aulds by taking advantage of the firm’s ‘slack’ method of banking, a court has heard.

Sacked former shop manager Anne Loughray plundered the business’s Gourock outlet during a six-month period after putting herself solely in charge of its cashflow operation.

Company procedure was to stuff takings into Aulds own paper bags and then transport the money by bus for it to be deposited at a Post Office Girobank in Greenock, a trial was told.

But Loughray, 54 — who claimed that she had simply ‘lost’ £2,995 in a single day — had, according to prosecutors, been siphoning off that money for months before bosses eventually spotted accounting discrepancies.

Greenock Sheriff Court heard how cash was supposed to be banked daily but that it was ‘common’ for it to build up over several days because there was often ‘no time’ to leave the shop.

Loughray — who never reported the apparent disappearance of the cash — claimed that she suffered a sudden bout of ill health before losing the money on her way to the bank.

The angina sufferer said that she’d placed a number of paper bags containing her shop’s takings into a plastic Aulds carrier before boarding a Greenock-bound bus at Gourock station.

But she couldn’t remember where she’d left the money or even on what day she’d lost it.

Procurator fiscal depute Lindy Scaife remarked: “It’s not exactly the most high security way in which to transport money.”

Loughray replied: “That’s just the way Aulds did it.”

The court heard that each day’s takings were placed into the same type of paper bags used by Aulds to serve up cakes and pastries, with individual totals written on the outside with a marker pen prior to them being taken to the bank.

Loughray claimed that the missing cash vanished during a period between October 23 and November 3 2014, when Gourock Post Office was closed and she had to make the bus journey into Greenock.

But Detective Constable Sharon Crawford told the court how a cross-reference check showed that none of the individual totals which had been due to be banked during that period matched the sum that was missing.

Loughray said that she was around £900 in the red for council tax and rent arrears and also had a credit card bill at around the time the money disappeared.

But despite her straitened financial circumstances she claimed that she used £1,000 of her own money in trying to ‘cover up’ losing the shop’s takings. 

When prosecutor Ms Scaife pointed out that there was still £2,995 outstanding when Aulds’ accounts department discovered the hole in the shop’s finances in January 2015, Loughray said: “I took my money back out because I needed it.”

She added: “I put it in because I was panicking.”

Ms Scaife put it to her: “Several things about the loss of the money just don’t add up.”

Loughray replied: “I take offence at that. You don’t know me.”

Defence lawyer Ellen Macdonald said that the Crown had not shown that any payments had been made into Loughray’s personal bank account or towards her debt.

Ms Macdonald described Aulds’ method of banking as ‘basic and somewhat slack’.

Sheriff Derek Hamilton found Loughray guilty of embezzling the money between the time that she was appointed as shop boss in August 2014 and January 2015 

The lawman said: “It seems to me that if someone lost nearly £3,000 then the date would be etched on their memory.

“I don’t find the accused credible at all in any of her explanations and she appeared to be thinking on her feet under questioning.”

Sentence on the first offender Loughray, of School Road, Port Glasgow, has been deferred until September 7 for a background report.

Aulds declined to comment on the case or their banking procedure.