A woman will face Christmas in jail for 8 months for stealing £6,000 from Formby Tesco

A woman will face Christmas in jail for 8 months for stealing £6,000 from Formby Tesco.

A 53-year-old was jailed yesterday and facing Christmas behind bars for eight months after admitting stealing a total of £6,000 from the Tesco superstore in #Formby over a 12 month period.

Her former colleague, Linda Ford, whose much smaller role involved just £138 was given a 12 month community order and ordered to carry out 80 hours unpaid work after admitting theft.

The two Tesco workers, one from #Lydiate and the other from #Birkdale falsely claimed over £6,000 in customer refunds and then pocketed the cash themselves from Tesco store in #Formby.

Julie Evans, 53, of The Moorings, Lydiate, worked as a customer service assistant at the Tesco store in Formby. She admitted stealing the money between June 2018 and July 2019, when she appeared at Sefton Magistrates Court on Wednesday 20th November.

Her colleague, Linda Ford aged 62, of Central Avenue, Birkdale, admitted stealing £138.10 between July 2018 and December 2018.

Both Julie Evans and Linda Ford had worked for Tesco for a considerable amount of time and both had previously been subject to disciplinary proceedings. In 2007, Evans was caught helping herself to stock when she worked on the deli counter while in 2009, Ford was caught putting 'reduced stickers' on items and then buying them for herself. They had aroused the suspicions of staff when they were seen to process customer refunds without any customer present. At the time Evans told her bosses a customer had phoned after forgetting to pick up a refund and she was putting the money aside for the customer to pick up.

However, Evans was monitored closely from mid June of this year after she was seen by a fellow staff member put money in her pocket. The staff member didn’t want to believe what they had seen at first but felt that they had no choice but to report it when they saw it happen again.

Evans admitted stealing £30 to £40 three times a week for about 12 months or longer and that she had problems in her personal life with gambling and credit card debts. Ford told bosses she’d known about the scam for about five months and that Evans had entangled her in it. The court heard that Ford resigned her job after being interviewed while Evans was sacked.

The matter came to an end at Liverpool Crown Court on 18th December 2019.