London: A 30-year-old Indian-origin bank employee has been jailed for one year on charges of stealing 120,000 pounds from an elderly customer in Scotland.
Satnam Kaur, who worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), then wrote a cheque to herself and sent a large sum of cash back home to India.
She claimed that the cash had been offered by Robert Brown as hush money after he had touched her inappropriately.
But the court heard that she had in fact stolen large sums of money from Brown and transferred it into the bank account of another customer.
Kaur, from Glasgow, was found guilty of the theft after she went on trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court earlier this month.
Defence lawyer Peter Keene said his client was sorry that bank customer had to come to court to give evidence as he was an “elderly and infirm” man.
Kaur was working as a customer advisor at the RBS Albyn Place branch in Aberdeen when she stole the cash between October 20 and November 21, 2011.
By using her unique identification number to access Brown’s account, she arranged to draw a banker’s draft for that sum payable to another account.
The sacked bank worker claimed she had asked permission to use the account for a bank transfer.
None of the cash can be recovered but Brown has since been reimbursed by the bank.
Kaur was also found guilty of removing 88,000 pounds of the cash out of Scotland after she went on trial earlier this month.
Kaur was originally charged on indictment and was due to go on trial facing similar charges last year.
But the trial collapsed after it emerged that the Crown had made a mistake.
The essential words ‘by authority of Her Majesty’s Advocate’, which are required by law, were missing from the indictment paperwork served against the accused.
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