Kathleen Margaret Griffiths imprisoned for more than three years over $700 000 embezzlement

A Bunbury woman charged with embezzling more than $700,000 from her employers over a 13 year period has been jailed. Kathleen Margaret Griffiths appeared in Bunbury District Court on Monday afternoon where she was sentenced to three years and four months for multiple counts of stealing as a servant, described by the court as a “pre-meditated... act of deception.” Between 2005 and 2018, 54-year-old stole $680,891 from Busselton’s Globe Signs as well as $57,010.50 from Dunsborough Post Office during her time as bookkeeper for both companies over more than 1000 separate occasions. As part of her role with Globe Signs, Griffiths was granted access to business’ online banking, where she was in charge of paying all staff, including herself. It is understood she worked one to two days a week for the majority of her employment, before relocating to Queensland in 2018 and conducting the work remotely. The court heard the woman began incrementally sending money to herself, disguised as “bonuses”, payments to the owner or to be coming from invoices that did not exist. The payments gradually increased, in size and frequency over the years, peaking in 2016 when she made 195 online transfers to herself totalling to $137,562. Similar actions were carried out during her employment at the Post Office, the court told she would pay herself “inflated amounts.” Both businesses struggled to remain profitable as a result of her actions. When approached by the owners of the PO about the transferred, Griffith’s lawyer told the court the woman offered to repay the company $1000 per month but received “no response” on the offer. Further, it is understood Griffiths repaid Globe Signs approximately $250,000 after returning to Bunbury and selling her Queensland properties. Defence submitted Griffiths felt “behind” and “impoverished” growing up due to her family’s own financial struggles and wanted to bring up her children “differently”. The court issued psychological report found Griffiths may have been “unaware” of her actions, due to her “highly disciplined” and “meticulously planned” habitual behaviours, allowing her to complete the actions without being “consciously aware” of the impact it would have on the victims. Due to Griffiths’ having no prior criminal record, along with several glowing character references, Judge David MacLean said he found it “difficult to understand” the woman’s motivations for the offending, describing it as a “vast amount of deceit over a long period of time.” “At the surface you are a valuable employee,” he said. “But in the background there are some motives... that have led to some kind of quiet rebelling against authority.” Along with the immediate prison term, Griffiths is required to pay more than $100,000 in compensation to both businesses, and will eligible for parole after 20 months.