A Farmfoods employee has been caught defrauding the supermarket of £275,000.

John Brown, 61, worked as a management accountant for the frozen food giant at their head office in Cumbernauld.

He had no access to the company chequebook, which was restricted to five named directors, but he began forging signatures on company cheques worth thousands of pounds which he made out to himself.

His crimes came to light in June 2019 when the Royal Bank of Scotland noticed suspicious activity on Farmfoods' account and company bosses began an internal investigation.

This revealed that a number of cheques had been issued from the company account to Brown's personal bank accounts. 

The directors, whose names appeared on the cheque, confirmed they had not signed them and that their signatures had been falsified. 

The matter was reported to police and Brown's employment was terminated by Farmfoods Ltd in July 2019. 

The court was told the handwriting on the cheque was identified as that of the accused.  

A review of company accounts spreadsheets, managed by Brown, revealed he had been writing off accruals and prepayments, preventing the cheques from flagging as suspicious through the firm’s internal processes. 

A subsequent investigation revealed that Brown had cashed cheques to the value of £275,000. 

He was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment in March 2023 for defrauding Farmfoods Ltd between 2015 and 2018. 

He was given a confiscation order for £77,000 at Airdrie Sheriff Court on Tuesday, March 19 and the court ordered that this sum be paid to Farmfoods Ltd as compensation.   

The order also states that he benefited from his crimes by £275,000. 

Sineidin Corrins, depute procurator fiscal for specialist casework, said: “Even after a conviction is secured, the Crown will continue to use proceeds of crime legislation to ensure that funds obtained through this type of crime are confiscated from perpetrators.  

 “Fraud is not a victimless crime. This was a brazen example of targeting a business and his employers, which affects employees, the business community and has a wider economic impact on Scotland as a whole.  

 “This case demonstrated the ability of prosecutors to effectively prepare and prosecute crime of this nature and should send a strong message about the potential consequences to others involved in this kind of criminal behaviour.”