THE sister of a call centre worker who stole colleagues' money from a Christmas savings scheme has branded her "money-mad".
Anna Marie Shaw, 40, ran a "didlum" savings scheme at an npower call centre in Clough Road, Hull, but emptied it of more than £4,000. She later tried to cover her tracks by claiming it had been stolen.
Magistrates took just 30 minutes to find Shaw guilty of nine counts of theft following a trial.
The offence cost Shaw her job. She is due to be sentenced at the same court later this month.
At one point, Shaw tried blaming her sister, Angela Coates, for stealing the money even though she lives almost 50 miles away in Castleford, West Yorkshire.
Mrs Coates, 38, said: "She doesn't have enough money to support the lifestyle she has been leading. She is money-mad and ruled by it.
"Anna Marie can't accept she comes from a council estate in Bransholme. She wants to be someone she isn't."
Shaw, of Rosedale Avenue, east Hull, ran the "didlum" savings scheme for three years and there were no problems in the first two, the court heard. She collected from colleagues, many of whom she described as friends, on or around pay day on the 22nd of each month.
But while she initially paid the money into a Halifax Liquid Gold account, in the third year Shaw began keeping most of the cash in a red tin box after claiming to have lost the paying-in book. She paid other amounts into her personal account at the same bank.
The fund for last Christmas was due to be paid out on Monday, November 4, and most of the savers asked to be given cash.
Instead of cash, she gave cheques, which all bounced.
Mrs Coates said she will not be able to forgive her sister for what she has done. She said: "I haven't really had a relationship with Anna Marie since she was about 15 years old.
"She has always been devious and she is like two different people. She is a complete liar.
"To tell her colleagues I had taken the money was devastating to hear. For her to use others as scapegoats was disgusting.
"I cannot forgive her for this. Where I come from, you don't steal, particularly when it is for kids at Christmas."
Shaw claimed she left the locked box in a holdall at her mother's home in Mullion Close, Bransholme. Shaw had been living there but did not take the holdall with her when she moved out into her partner's home in August last year.
She said she wrote the cheques intending to pay the cash into her account to cover them, but discovered the bag had been forced open and the box was "missing" when she went to retrieve it on November 13.
She said she thought it would "turn up" and claimed to have reported the "theft" to police the following day, but the police log showed she did not report it until November 18.
Only one of the ten people who took part in the scheme got their money back.
In total, Shaw was convicted of stealing £4,290 from nine female colleagues, with amounts ranging from £220 to £900.
Shaw will be sentenced on Tuesday, August 26.
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