A Limavady woman who stole £452,787 over a decade from her employer has been handed a three-year sentence.
The judge said "realistically, it would not have been possible for this level of misappropriation and theft to have gone on, and gone on undetected for as long as it did and for so many years" without the defendant being in the position she was and exploiting it for her own ends.
The prosecution outlined that in December 2019 the Edwin May group's financial advisor noticed that of the three branches, only the Coleraine branch was operating at a loss on Motability cars. A lawyer described how Smyth transferred credits and bonuses to accounts where customers' cash payments were lodged and she would then withdraw the cash.
He said his client had been married for 22 years, had a good work record until now and a clear criminal record, as well as admitting her guilt at the earliest opportunity.In jailing Smyth, the judge said the guidelines were clear that in cases of such a "gross" abuse of trust, matters of personal mitigation carried less weight than in other cases.