A BOOKKEEPER, who stole more than $850,000 from a company that owns a string of Hunter supermarkets to fund her voracious gambling addiction, has been jailed after it was revealed she had repaid only about $13,000.
Narelle Labuts, 61, of Cardiff, said she felt "elation" while playing poker machines, but now said the addiction had "literally wrecked everything in my life".
"I was just praying for a big win to return it all back," Labuts said in Newcastle District Court on Wednesday.
"Of course the house always wins, so it never eventuated."
Labuts worked as a bookkeeper for the Singh Group, a company that owns 10 IGA stores and a FoodWorks, between 2017 and 2021.
Forensic investigators and police discovered she almost immediately got to work defrauding the company, creating fake financial documents so she could make 522 transfers totalling $878,354 into her bank accounts.
One method Labuts would use was entering the fraudulent payments in white font, making them invisible to store managers and staff members who would review the documents.
Labuts estimated she had put about 90 per cent of the stolen funds through the poker machines.
She wasn't charged until October 2024, after police received a forensic accountant's report into the massive and complex fraud, and pleaded guilty last year to dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception and making a false document to obtain a financial advantage.
Labuts told Newcastle District Court on Wednesday that she had repaid about $3500, the amount of the last fraudulent transaction before she was detected, and agreed to forfeit about $9700 in leave entitlements after being terminated.
She said she knew what she was doing was wrong and had since sought help for her addiction and undergone gambling counselling.
"It is an addiction and it will never go away," Labuts said.
"It is something I will have to deal with and cope with every single day."
Asked if she had anything to say to her employer, Labuts tearfully responded: "How incredibly sorry I am. Sorry that I have destroyed the trust that they put in me".
Labuts is not a qualified accountant and was not subject to a public register, which meant she was able to get work as a bookkeeper for a transport company and a concrete company after the fraud was detected and she was fired from Singh Group.
She did not disclose to her new employers why she left her previous job, but said she would in the future because her charges were now "common knowledge".
"I would like to say I would never ever do it again," Labuts said of the chances she would re-offend.
"I can't put my family and my friends and myself through this ever again."
Defence barrister Stephen Hopper said Labuts was not in a position to repay the whole amount to the Singh Group.
"She gave what she could," he said.
"She doesn't own real estate, she doesn't own any assets of any significance.
"And really, without employment, she has no means to pay any further back."
He said Labuts had shown remorse and made significant steps to rehabilitate herself from her gambling addiction.
Mr Hopper said the difficulty for Labuts was the total amount she had stolen, but submitted she could be placed on an intensive corrections order to continue her rehabilitation.
But Judge Tim Gartelmann, SC, said the fraud required "significant planning and organisation" and Labuts had abused her employer's trust over a number of years.
He jailed her for a maximum of three-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of two years, making her eligible for parole in July, 2028.
According to court documents, Labuts was employed in 2017 as an accountant with the Singh Group, which had offices in the IGA store at Stockton.
Her role would involve making supplier payments and receiving supplier rebates and she was the only employee who had full access to the company's accounting and banking records.
But in December 2021, a bank manager discovered a suspicious transaction and contacted a director of the company.
The bank manager quizzed Labuts about the discrepancies, but her response was deemed "unsatisfactory", and the directors began to suspect something was amiss.
The company then met with employees who had discovered other suspicious transactions and a staff member contacted Labuts, who admitted to stealing money from the company, according to court documents.
A forensic investigator was contacted to look into the fraud and the police were also called to assist in an investigation into the fraudulent payments.
Ultimately, the audit found that between October, 2017, and December, 2021, the Singh Group had suffered a financial loss of $878,354, the result of fraudulent payments and misappropriation of funds.
