Embezzler who used Rangers fans boys club to launder cash is sentenced

Margaret Stewart admitted stealing from her employer Ivanhoe Cambridge, which used to own Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre.

She then used her position as treasurer at the boys club, which was founded in 1960 for boys between five and 17-years-old counts professionals such as Barry Ferguson, Lee McCulloch, Graham Dorrans and Charlie Miller among its former players, to pay cheques into its account before taking the cash back for herself.

At Glasgow Sheriff Court, Stewart, 48, from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, was also told to repay £27,000.

The court previously heard that Stewart worked in the accounts department of Ivanhoe Cambridge UK, which sold the St Enoch Centre in 2013.

Between May 2008 and January 2011 she had managers at the firm sign cheques that were supposed to be used to make legitimate payments.

Stewart would then write over the payee name and insert the football team’s name.

The money would go to the club before Stewart took it for herself.

She was caught after a bank spotted a problem with one of the cheques from Ivanhoe Cambridge and phoned her office.

Stewart then immediately confessed to her superiors and a payment plan was put in place for her to repay the money.

The court heard that although more than £5,000 was repaid, the plan was not completed and her house was put on the market.

The house was rendered worthless due to Japanese Knotweed, and Stewart was later reported to police.

Stewart appeared for sentencing on Thursday having earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzling the money.

The court heard that Stewart’s husband had been jailed in 2003 for three-and-a-half years for drug dealing and she had resorted to theft to repay the debts that he racked up.

Imposing a community payback order, Sheriff Linda Ruxton told Stewart that her embezzlement was “deliberate and systematic” but she accepted the “impact on her of her husband’s criminal behaviour”.