Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Store boss embezzled £90k from Halfords in crooked coupon scam
THE boss of a Tayside Halfords branch swindled the company out of £90,000 with a crooked cashing-up scam.
Manager Gary Ridgewell pocketed cash from the till and then doctored customer coupons to balance the books.
His scheme ran for more than five years while he was boss at Halford branches in Perth and Dumbarton.
He was caught out when the firm launched a nationwide investigation and found suspicious activity at both of his workplaces.
Ridgewell, 50, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted embezzling cash from the company between January 2013 and March 2018.
He was originally charged with pilfering around £178,000 but prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to the reduced sum of £90,000.
Ridgewell said he stole the cash to feed a gambling habit.
While at Dumbarton, he discovered an “anomaly” when registering customer coupons.
“The accused worked out that by increasing the value of the coupon, the cash balance would be higher than the physical cash balance in the till,” the fiscal depute said.
“He realised that cash could be removed from the till and the total recorded balance would match the physical balance.
His scam went unnoticed until Halfords launched an internal investigation in all its stores in February 2018.
The court heard the probe, led by the company’s national fraud investigator, was sparked by a non-related issue with missing money.
Ridgewell was sacked after a disciplinary hearing in March 2018.
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said: “He will do his very best to obtain funds to repay the money.”
Sheriff Alison Mckay told Ridgewell: “This is a serious charge with a large sum of money involved. All potential disposals are before the court for consideration.”
Ridgwell, of Leny Road, Deanston, Doune, will be sentenced next month.