A cleaner has been found guilty of stealing £6,000 from a York couple’s house safe.
Michaela Martin, 36, was hired to clean the couple’s home in the Clementhorpe area, near Bishopthorpe Road.
But one day in April 2022, they discovered that the money was missing from the safe in their spare bedroom, York Magistrates’ Court heard.
The couple, who have since moved home, were initially baffled as they were the only ones with a key and a security code to the safe.
But the finger of suspicion inevitably pointed to Martin, who was caught on the couple’s in-house CCTV rummaging in a bedside-cabinet drawer – after she gave a friendly ‘hello’ to their pet dog Rupert who was sat on the bed.
The massive cash haul was made up of deposits from the named husband’s business. His wife also suspected that Martin, a single mother-of-three, had stolen “a few hundred pounds” from her.
Police were called in and searched Martin’s home in nearby Southlands Road, where they didn’t find any cash but found documents and letters in her kitchen showing that she had unpaid loans and council-tax debts.
‘Looking for tablets’
Prosecutor Corey Booth said the stolen cash had been deposited by Martin into bank accounts which enabled her to spend money on presents for her family.
However, due to the bank deposits, there was no cash trail leading to Martin who denied the offence in the teeth of the evidence, including footage from the security camera which the couple had installed in the bedroom showing her rummaging through a bedside drawer.
Martin claimed she had been looking for painkiller tablets for the victim’s wife, although she admitted it “looked suspicious”.
She was charged with theft by employee but denied the offence. She was found guilty in her absence following a trial before magistrates today (24 March).
Taking to the witness box, the female victim said that she and her husband were looking for a cleaner and developed a passing acquaintance with Martin as during the Covid lockdown her husband used to walk the dog past her house and would say ‘hello’ when Martin was having a cigarette outside her home.
Martin told them she had a “cleaning company” and offered to work at their home. She started working there in 2021, a year before the thefts.
The victim said the safe was hidden in a “Victorian cupboard” and bolted to the floor. It could only be opened by a code and an “overriding key” kept in her husband’s private side drawer in their bedroom.
On 5 August, 2022, the couple asked Martin to cover for their usual cleaner who was off work for a month.
The victim said she let Martin in, then went shopping. Three days later, her husband said there was £6,000 missing from the safe. She then checked an envelope which had a few hundred pounds of her own money inside, and that was missing too.
She said she was in “disbelief”, but then it dawned on her that Martin must have been “going through our cupboards until she found what she found”, namely the safe key.
Six days later, Martin came to the house again, but this time the victim remained in the bedroom to ensure nothing was stolen.
Just under a week later, her husband was watching footage on his phone from the security camera inside the bedroom and saw Martin going straight to his bedside drawers where the safe key was kept. The footage showed Martin rifling through the drawers while “looking over her shoulder”.
Martin, who had been paid in cash by the couple, was arrested and taken in for questioning, but she made vehement denials and said she was “in shock”.
When police put it to her that there had been a previous incident where she had stolen from an employer, Martin replied: “I knew this would come up.”
It transpired that the day after the theft from the York couple, some £2,545 had been deposited into a Lloyd’s bank account under Martin’s name.
Between 6 and 11 August, there were a number of payments amounting to £2,379 into a Nationwide account. The money appeared to have been spent online at “multiple retailers”.
The magistrates found that Martin was guilty of stealing six cash bundles worth £6,000 from the safe and that the total amount stolen from the house was about £6,200.
They issued a warrant for Martin’s arrest, not backed for bail, as she had not turned up for her trial.