A worker who stole £40,000 from a Lanarkshire catering firm after his dad racked up gambling debts to ruthless Chinese gangsters has been spared jail.
Justin Leigh, 45, pocketed thousands over a five-year period to try and pay off triads.
His dad got into 'significant' debt which led to the entire family being moved to Scotland from Swindon and handed new identities because police believed their lives were in danger.
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But the gambling problem returned and the organised crime group arrived in Scotland and launched a campaign of intimidation against the family.
A panicked Leigh, originally from Vietnam, began removing funds from catering company Scotch Frost of Glasgow Ltd where he worked to try and keep the gangsters at bay.
His deceit was uncovered after a probe at the firm's base in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, revealed money was missing and it was traced to his bank account.
Leigh of Clarkston, appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court and admitted embezzling £40,000 from the firm between February 2014 and February 2019.
Sheriff Colin Dunipace ordered the first offender to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and tagged him for the next six months.
Leigh, who now works in a restaurant, had originally been charged with pocketing £60,000 but prosecutors accepted his guilty plea to the lesser amount.
Ali Murray, defending, said: "The motivation behind this was to deal with debts accrued by his father who was involved in gambling and had run up debts with triads.
"Matters were taken so seriously by police in England and the Crown Prosecution Service that his entire family were moved from Swindon to Scotland with new identities and national insurance numbers.
"But the father got himself embroiled with gambling again and it is a case of history repeating itself.
"This group of people then came to Scotland, found them and were intimidating Justin Leigh and his family so as a result Mr Leigh started diverting funds from his employer and started giving it to this group of individuals."
The solicitor advocate added: "It was almost inevitable that he would get caught.
"He is contrite and notwithstanding the sum of money involved, I would be asking the court to stop short of imposing what could be a significant custodial sentence."
Sheriff Dunipace said: "You were involved in embezzling a sum of money from your employer and it seems as if there is little chance of them recovering any of those sums.
"Cases like this do normally result in custodial sentences but because the circumstances here are so unusual, I can just step back from a custodial sentence in this case."
A triad is an international organised crime group based in China and also operates in areas with significant Chinese populations.
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