Michael Paterson, 59, set up an internal pathway which allowed him to fraudulently issue council tax refunds into his own bank account.

Between 2006 and 2023, Paterson, who was employed as a council tax and recovery team leader, issued 622 refunds totalling £1,087,444.

He was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh after pleading guilty to a charge of embezzlement and will now face confiscation proceedings to recover the monies he stole.

The court heard how Paterson had unrestricted and unmonitored access to a system which allowed him to issue refunds to council taxpayers up to £3,000. But in September last year, a colleague spotted an unusual refund conducted by ‘mikep’ to the value of £2,899.81 to a customer who was not entitled to one.

As a result, the council’s counter fraud department was alerted, and a widespread investigation eventually revealed the scale of Paterson’s crimes. It showed that, between 2019 and 2023, the total sum of £376,042 was paid into a specific account by user ‘mikep’.

Further investigations revealed that between 2006 and 2019, a total of 490 refunds worth £711,401.61 were paid into the same account in which Paterson received his monthly council salary.

He was suspended from his job in September 2023 when the matter was reported to the police and dismissed from his employment three months later. Paterson will now be the subject of confiscation action under Proceeds of Crime legislation.

Moira Orr, who leads on homicide and major crime for the Crown Office, said: “This was an egregious betrayal of trust by a council worker who took advantage of his position to embezzle public money from his employers.”