A man who stole £20,000 from the Ballymena forecourt where he worked has walked free from court after repaying the money.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, Jordan Henderson voided customer transactions and kept a running total of the value on his mobile phone and then pocketed the money at the end of his shifts. Henderson also handed out products from the shop to his friends.
His crimes were spotted in January 2020 when the manager of the site realised there had been a big fall in profits. She carried out an internal audit and noticed Henderson was responsible for a large number of voided transactions. This was confirmed via CCTV footage which showed him voiding transactions. It also showed him allowing customers to leave without paying for things.
The Belfast Telegraph reported that three customers in particular were allowed to hang around the shop for hours on end, often eating stock without paying for it.
The manager estimated Henderson was stealing around £140 on each of his four shifts a week.
Henderson pleaded guilty to committing fraud by abusing the position of trust he held at the forecourt between August 18, 2018 and January 7, 2020.
His defence lawyer said £20,000 had been transferred directly into the victim’s bank account, so there had been “full restitution”.
However, Henderson was told that due to the scale of the fraud and the breach of trust he could have faced a jail sentence of up to 21 months. Instead the judge gave him an 11-month suspended sentence after considering the defendant’s remorse, his clean record and that the money had been repaid.
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