B&Q York scammed out of £70,000 by employee

A B&Q employee who embarked on a £70,000 DIY thieving spree has been spared jail.

Thomas Edwards, 43, conspired with 49-year-old Barry Raftree, a trader and B&Q customer, to steal building materials, electrical items and tools at the home-improvement store in Osbaldwick, York Crown Court heard.

Edwards, the main player in the scam, concocted a ruse whereby some of the items in Raftree’s trolley would not be paid through at the self-service check-out, said prosecutor Timothy Jacobs.

The audacious scheme lasted some 12 months until financial auditors at the retail giant noticed glaring discrepancies in the sales ledger.

They quizzed Edwards about the anomalies and contacted police, who brought him in for questioning. He owned up straight away and lost his job.

Meanwhile, officers swooped on Raftree’s home in York and found some of the stolen items.

Edwards, of Roseberry Street, York, was charged with three counts of theft and admitted all matters. 

Raftree, of Hadrian Avenue, pleaded guilty to one count of theft.

The wider plot, purportedly involving at least two others, ran from October 2016 to September 2017.

Edwards and Raftree appeared for sentence yesterday (Friday, November 26).

Prosecuting barrister Mr Jacobs said Edwards and Raftree were not friends, simply a B&Q employee and a purchaser respectively.

“The scheme was that customers would come into B&Q, a self-service enterprise, and they would go up to the counter where they would expect to pay for…whatever they’ve got in the trolley,” he added.

“Some of the things in the trolley were not paid through.”

Raftree was involved in the ruse for about six weeks, during which time he underpaid for items to the tune of £5,040 in 21 separate transactions.

But Edwards ran the wider scam for 12 months, reportedly helping others to freebies and discounts.

“The total loss to the business was about £70,000, but that includes other customers as well,” said Mr Jacobs.

“Mr Edwards is the single point of control.”

He said the £70,000 figure was just a “best guess”, based on CCTV footage of the items that could be seen inside the trolley, the stock-shortage list and a minimum loss of £8,124 in one six-week period alone.

The three charges admitted by Edwards relate to at least two other individuals who were said to have benefited from the DIY plot but to a much lesser extent.

Raftree was brought in for questioning in November 2017 and told police he had been a customer at the store in Osbaldwick Link Road for about two years.

“He said Mr Edwards…wouldn’t scan everything through the tills,” added Mr Jacobs.

“He said he didn’t know him outside B&Q.”

Raftree said the plot began when he and Edwards bumped into each other at a garage on Hull Road and he asked Edwards if he could “get him some boards”.

There was then a “general agreement to carry on…presenting items (at the till) and not charging the whole amount”.

His solicitor advocate Graham Parkin said Raftree had never been in trouble before and had returned the stolen items to police.

Nicholas Hammond, for Edwards, said his client had also led a previously blameless life.

He said the offences had “already had devastating consequences for (Edwards)”.

His partner had left him after the offences came to light and he was now renting a room in a shared house.

He had found himself new work at a supermarket but that also ended after his employers found out about his offending. He was now jobless and would find it “extremely difficult to get work in the future”.

Recorder Simon Jackson KC told the DIY plotters: “You both pleaded guilty to your involvement in a wider pattern of dishonesty (but) you, Mr Edwards, (were) the fulcrum (of the scam).”

Raftree was given an 18-month community order with 250 hours of unpaid work. He was ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs.

Edwards was given a 20-month jail sentence because his offending was “far wider and far longer than that of Mr Raftree”, but this was suspended for two years due to the mitigating factors set out by his defence and the inexplicable delay in the case reaching court.

He was ordered to carry out 200 hours’ unpaid work and pay £800 costs.