Crime Solicitors

A company accountant who handed himself into police on the day there was an audit of the company he worked for managed to defraud his employers of £20,045.78, a court has heard.

David Chisholm, 47, from Eddington Way in Easton had been a “trusted employee” of multimillion-pound family-firm Bartram Mowers in Bluebell Road, Norwich. The firm was founded in 1972 by Barry Bartram – and operated out of premises at Norwich airport, employing four people.

The company had expanded over the years – and opened a depot in Ipswich in 1988.

Local online publisher EDP24 reports that the court heard Chisholm had stolen petty cash from the company, had used the company credit card to make minimum payments on his credit cards – and had falsified the accounts to balance the books as a result of his “incompetence” to chase up money owed.

Chisholm had also manipulated the end-of-year accounts to get through the yearly audits.

The prosecution told the court that Chisholm had written off outstanding debts – and that Bartram Mowers was finding it “very difficult” to recover its losses because of the age of some of the debts.
Chisholm pleaded guilty to charges involving dishonestly abusing his position as company accountant – in which he was expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of Bartram Mowers – but had done so to the tune of £20,045.78.
Chisholm had walked into a police station in March this year and “said he wished to admit to theft”.

He had emailed his employer that morning, saying:

“Mark, I’ve stolen in the region of £20,000 from Bartram Mowers over the last three to four years.”

Chisholm added that there were debts that needed chasing when he started in his job – and “it snowballed from there”.

When Chisholm handed himself in, the prosecution said the context of this was that he feared his offending was about to be exposed.

“He only did so on the day he knew that auditors from Lovewell Blake accountants were due to attend.

“If they had had not, the situation would have continued.”

In a victim personal statement, managing director Mark Bartram said that Chisholm was a “trusted member of staff” – and that he felt “completely let down”.

No mitigation evidence was offered at the hearing and Chisholm admitted fraud relating to the period April 2013 to March 2015.

Chisholm will be sentenced at Norwich Crown Court on a date to be scheduled.

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