Crooked Edinburgh office manager jailed for embezzling £900,000 back behind bars after failing to repay cash
A devious office manager who was jailed for embezzling £900,000 from her employers to fund a lavish lifestyle is back behind bars after she failed to pay any of the money back.
Emma Hunt took the massive amount of cash by arranging for tenants to pay their rent into her own bank account over a three year period while working at an Edinburgh property firm.
Hunt, 40, then splashed the cash she had stolen on funding luxury holidays, stays in five star hotels and top of the range cars. She spent close to £40,000 on a Halloween party at the 16th century Fenton Tower castle in East Lothian and paid out £3000 for a birthday bash for her and friends at Musselburgh racecourse.
Hunt also spent thousands of pounds on hospitality packages at the Scottish Open golf tournament and a Six Nations Scotland v England rugby match at Murrayfield Stadium.
The crooked scheme was eventually uncovered after a tenant queried the rent payments they were making and bosses at capital firm McLean Properties launched an investigation in 2019.
Hunt denied the allegations but was subsequently found guilty by a jury of embezzling £899,164.77 between 2016 and 2019 following a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in 2023.
She was jailed for three years and was later made the subject of a Confiscation Order under the Proceeds of Crime legislation and was ordered to repay the sum of £211,436.91.
But since her release from custody Hunt, from Coldstream in the Scottish Borders, has failed to repay the agreed proceeds to the Crown and she appeared back in the dock at the capital court last week.
Sheriff Gillian Sharp was told the disgraced office manager was unable to repay the money within the allowed 12 month time period and said she had no option but impose a further term of custody.
Hunt, who represented herself, was jailed for two years and 271 days on Wednesday, January 14.
During the original trial, prosecutor Connor Muir read out details of Hunt’s lavish spending between May 2016 and January 2019 as part of an agreed joint minute.
The fiscal depute said Hunt spent more than £23,000 on breaks at hotels including the five star Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh, and had paid £7944 for a Caribbean holiday between December 31, 2018, and January 10, 2019.
She also spent £1674 on flights for a weekend trip to Dublin, paid for accommodation at the city’s exclusive Westbury Hotel and bought a new Audi S1 Quattro for £19,500 and a BMW M2 for £35,000.
The court was told she also spent £6730.05 at the Louis Vuitton fashion store and had made 45 transactions totalling £91,596 to her brother’s farming contracting business.
The jury heard her role at McLean Properties included controlling the financial paperwork concerning properties and she had arranged for new tenants to pay their rent into her own account.
She also took deposits from student tenants who were not usually charged the fee and amended invoices from firms carrying out maintenance services.
Hunt was found guilty of embezzling £899,164.77 between May 31, 2016 and January 20, 2019. She was also found guilty of pretending to 11 customers they had to pay deposits for flats when no sums were due and obtained £7295 by fraud.
Hunt was also found guilty of transferring money into her brother’s account to pay for items including a bulldozer and purchasing goods, services, hospitality, holidays and cars.