Big Bus Big Scam

A payroll administrator with popular Big Bus Tours, who pocketed nearly £60,000 by collecting ex-employees wages, has been jailed for two years.

Mother-of-two Melanie Douglas, 36, of Rosaline Road, Fulham was employed in the firm’s accounts department and had sole control of the computer programme that paid the 450-strong staff.

Between February and November 2008 she stole £59,225, diverting most of the proceeds into her brother’s bank account and pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position.

Father-of-two Delroy Douglas, 34, also of Rosaline Road pleaded guilty to laundering criminal proceeds totalling £38,094 and was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, suspended for a year and ordered to complete 150 hours community service work.

Prosecutor Mr. James Thacker told Croydon Crown Court Melanie Douglas was a £23,000 a year administrator with the Westminster-based firm since February 2005.

“She used the computer’s Pyramid System and entered all the hours worked by the employees and transferred the wages into the employees bank accounts.”

A new finance manager ordered a change in the payroll system in October 2008 and the defendant immediately took four months sick leave with stress.

“She did not want the changes implemented because her fraud would be found out,” added Mr. Thacker.

The company even gave the defendant a £6,500 pay-off, but her replacement noticed the previous year’s figures did not add up.

Six former employees were still being paid and it was discovered one of the accounts receiving funds was Delroy Douglas’s, which was subject to cash withdrawals soon after the deposits.

It was the same account his unemployment payments were deposited in.

Investigators discovered Melanie Douglas made approximately 150 payments to herself.

“You have systematically, carefully and cleverly removed from your employers sums in excess of fifty thousand pounds in eight months,” Judge Ruth Downing told Melanie Douglas.

“I cannot think of a higher degree of trust. You were the sole custodian of the wages system and cynically used the power for your own uses by siphoning off money.”

The judge told Delroy Douglas: “You allowed your bank account to be used and took some small sums.”