Greedy Scots mum jailed for swindling £500k from two jobs ordered to pay back cash
A greedy Scots mum who was jailed for swindling more than half-a-million pounds from two different jobs has been ordered to pay back £80,000.
Stephanni Houston, also known as Bryden, was locked up for three years in 2023 after admitting swiping more than £516,000 from two more firms over the course of four years.
We revealed how the 41-year-old admin worker, from Ayr, was locked up for 38 months at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court after making a bleating apology in the Record two years earlier for defrauding pensioners out of thousands at an Ayrshire care home.
Now prosecutors have been awarded a confiscation order to the sum of £81,589.86 - saying the mum could be pursued for more cash in the future.
Sineidin Corrins, Deputy Procurator Fiscal for Serious Casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: 'This confiscation underscores the fact that prosecution of those involved in financial crime does not stop at criminal conviction and sentencing.
'Even after that conviction was secured, the Crown pursued Proceeds of Crime action to ensure the funds Stephanni Houston obtained illegally were confiscated.
'Confiscation orders have ongoing financial consequences, meaning we can seek to recover further assets from this individual in the future to reflect the full amount."
Houston avoided jail in 2014 when she was ordered to pay back all of the £2425 she defrauded while working as an administrator for Berelands Care Home in Prestwick.
She raided cash accounts belonging to a 93-year-old blind woman, a frail 89-year-old woman, and two men aged 83 and 91.
Houston admitted fraud at Ayr Sheriff Court and was ordered to do 240 hours of unpaid work as well as repaying the money within a year.
The court was told she had forged managers' signatures to take residents' money from the home between April 1 and December 21, 2013.
Bosses said they had to compensate residents for their losses while a sheriff described her deceit as 'a serious offence against those who are the most vulnerable'.
When the Record approached Bryden she blamed her poor accounting. She told our reporter at the time: 'I feel hellish. I'm so ashamed of the mess I've made. I just want to say how sorry I am to the residents. It was a stupid mistake.'
But in November 2023, Houston was sent to prison for betraying two more employers. She admitted embezzling £253,281.30 while working as an office administrator at Kelburne Construction in Kilmarnock from February 1, 2017, to January 29, 2019.
Months later she started embezzling £262,987.68 while working as a book-keeper for WM Donnelly and Co in East Kilbride, taking the cash between May 17, 2019, and March 31, 2021.
When she was jailed, a source close to the case told the Record: 'It's clearly a greed thing. Her car in the yard at work was better than the boss's car. Everyone was scratching their heads. She was sitting in a top-of-the-range Audi but no one thought for one minute what she was up to.
'When she was done for the nursing home fraud her name was Bryden but when she went to Kelburne her name was Houston. Everyone got on fine with her in the office. She seemed good at her job but no one knew her background. Her past only came to light after she did what she did.
'She got a warning for the incident in the nursing home and got out of going to jail but she's obviously not shown any respect for the authorities or her employers. The day police came into the yard she was the one who showed them to the boss's office. She must have had a few heartbeats when the police car drew up that day.'
At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on Friday, a confiscation order was made to the sum of £81,589.86.
The confiscation order can be revisited if further assets are identified in the future to be paid towards the full amount that was determined as the benefit of the crime.
A compensation order in the sum of £41,610.83 was awarded to Wm Donnelly and Co Ltd. A second compensation order in the sum of £39,979.03, was awarded to Kelburn Construction.
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