NZ supermarket manager Clare Strachan steals $280K from employer to feed drug habit

Former supermarket manager Clare May Strachan yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing $280,000 from the business over four years.

She worked her way up the ladder and became one of her firm's most trusted employees. Her boss backed her enough to ask her to be his personal assistant.

But Clare Strachan had another master. And when he was finished with the New Plymouth 29-year-old, she would lose her job, find herself convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars and face the harrowing prospect of a hefty sentence.

Strachan's struggle with that exacting master, her addiction to methamphetamine, was detailed in the New Plymouth District Court yesterday, when she admitted stealing $282,718.80 from New Plymouth's City New World between July 2006 and May 2010 to feed her drug habit.

Her partner, Brendyn Clapham, has yet to plead to 53 counts of money laundering, receiving, and using a document for pecuniary advantage which police allege made up nearly $46,000 of the total amount taken.

Strachan had been employed at the central city supermarket for more than nine years, during which time she worked her way up to administration manager.

She was trusted enough to be supermarket owner Rob Dowman's personal assistant.

But the stunning ruse in which she illegally amassed more than quarter of a million dollars broke down on November 25 when she was arrested by police at work, sacked and then trespassed from the supermarket.

A tearful and remorseful confession followed where she told police about the many different ways she stole money from the business.

"She stated that she and her partner developed a methamphetamine addiction and a lot of the money was spent on this controlled drug," the police summary says.

She paid extra money to herself through the wage system, stole phone card money, transferred invoice payments to her bank account and did the same with the excess automated check-out machine float, as well as helping herself to gift cards.

The theft and the huge deficit it created went close to closing the inner-city supermarket.

Her former employer has told police he wants $236,990.09 repayment from her.

Strachan's defence counsel, Kylie Pascoe, told the court her client was well aware of the seriousness of the offending and the likely outcome. Strachan was willing to participate in a restorative justice conference with Mr Dowman.

Judge Allan Roberts convicted Strachan on a total of 51 charges of computer crime and theft as a person in a special relationship. Some charges represent many separate offences.

Strachan was remanded on bail for sentencing on May 5. The judge ordered a full pre-sentence report to be prepared.