Ulverston shop worker made thousands stealing 19,000 scratchcards and lottery tickets

Siobhan Ferguson, who was said to have a gambling addiction, embezzled an estimated £400 a week from the corner shop over almost 10 months before she was caught on camera and arrested.

The city’s Crown Court was told her total haul could not be accurately assessed because she used winnings from some cards to pay for others at the till.

But when police visited her home they found 19,000 National Lottery scratch cards and tickets, most of which had come from the shop where she worked.

The 40-year-old mother-of-five pleaded guilty to a single charge of fraud by false accounting and was handed a suspended prison sentence. In addition Recorder Ben Lawrence ordered her to do 150 hours of unpaid work.

Barrister Cecilia Pritchard, prosecuting, said Ferguson had secured a part-time job in 2019 at the Premier Store only yards from where she lived in Ulverston. The shop had a National Lottery terminal and also sold various National Lottery scratch cards.

The owner of the store had known her for a number of years prior to giving her the job and thought he could trust her.

But in 2020 he became suspicious because the shop was getting through double the number of scratch cards than normal every week – 12,000 instead of 5,000 to 6,000 – yet the takings were substantially down.

One day he was looking on the shop’s CCTV recording and spotted Ferguson scanning a large number of cards on the National Lottery till. He decided to monitor what was happening and saw her doing the same again on numerous occasions.

The police were called and visited her home down the road where they found “thousands” of cards and almost 300 lottery tickets. A significant number of the cards were from the corner shop and many were still in rolls.

The total value of the find was estimated at around £19,000, although the court heard it was almost impossible to identify exactly how much had been defrauded.

One estimate put the amount at up to £55,000, while the prosecution decided the loss to the store was a minimum of £12,000.

When Ferguson, of Devonshire Road, was interviewed by police she admitted she had a gambling addiction and was “embarrassed” by what she had done.

She said she had been paying for them from winnings by previous cards and tickets. She claimed she used to settle up at the end of the day but admitted there “may have been a shortfall on occasions”.

The shopkeeper said he and his wife had given Ferguson a job opportunity and she had “abused our trust and destroyed my trust in human nature.” The couple had considered closing the store due to the losses and so her actions could have cost five people their jobs.

“Had the local community not been behind us I believe we would have sold up,” he said. And he added the community had been “horrified” by what had happened.

Ferguson’s defence lawyer said her client had not gambled since she left her job at the Devonshire Road store. This was a first offence and a custodial sentence would have a serious impact on her family as a mum with young children.

Recorder Lawrence told Ferguson she only had a modest income and she could not possibly have paid for the £19,000 worth of cards and tickets found by police at her home.

She had defrauded her employer in a “haphazard” way and it had not been possible to quantify exactly how much her actions had cost.

The shopkeeper said he had estimated his losses at around £400 a week over the months before the fraud was discovered – a total at the very least of £12,000.

The judge said Ferguson had continued to deny her guilt to a theft charge and had only admitted an alternative of fraud by false accounting at a later date.

He said she had abused the trust of her employer and added it was a small community she had to live amongst.

The shopkeeper was not a large commercial employer and a loss of such magnitude “could have ruined his business and therefore that of the people who worked there.”

Recorder Lawrence gave her a 15-month prison sentence but said he could suspend it for 18 months because Ferguson was considered a low risk of reoffending and had young children.

But he warned her that if she committed any further offences in the suspension period of 18 months, or breached her unpaid work order, she would be brought back to court and could end up in prison.