A woman stole jewellery and cash worth £23,000 from her friend’s house in Monifieth when she was on holiday.
Michelle Sales, 49, returned to Ashludie Steadings after a two-week family trip to Lanzarote on October 25 to find one of her window panes missing along with valuable belongings from her bedroom.
Carnoustie resident Susan Beattie, 42, was found guilty of the break-in and theft at Forfar Sheriff Court after Sheriff Pino Di Emidio found her evidence was “not reliable”.
She had claimed her former friend had intended to commit insurance fraud and “panicked” when police came to investigate the theft.
The court heard the offence followed a friendship that had waxed and waned over 10 years, and immediately followed a breakdown in trust.
Depute fiscal Hannah Kennedy called on Ms Sales, who makes and supplies soft furnishings to shops, to give evidence.
Ms Sales said she had lived at the steadings for nearly seven years and had been on holiday with her family between October 10 and 25. She found a downstairs bay window had been removed on her return.
The court heard three friends possessed keys for the house but Beattie was “not trusted” to keep a set.
Ms Sales “instantly” suspected Beattie as she had seen the homeowner retrieve jewellery from a cache kept underneath shoes in her wardrobe.
The accused had also previously helped Ms Sales put together her bedframe, where she kept the money.
Ms Kennedy asked why such high-value jewellery and cash was kept there, to which Ms Sales replied: “There was a lot of my ex-husband’s jewellery, so it had sentimental value.”
Defending Beattie, solicitor John Boyle suggested Ms Sales had encountered financial problems and had stumbled upon “a good way to get money” by giving her jewellery to Beattie and then claiming theft, which she denied.
Detective Constable Scott Heron described the 35-minute police search at Beattie’s Kinloch Street home on November 5.
He attended with four other officers to search the house for jewellery and cash, and found the former in a living room unit. Officers were unable to find the money.
Ms Kennedy asked DC Heron: “Did you put it to her that it was strange for Michelle Sales to arrange an insurance fraud and then point the finger at Susan?”
He indicated he had at interview, and that officers found no evidence to implicate Ms Sales in fraud. Mr Boyle asked the accused, a self-employed insurance saleswoman, how she had come to meet Ms Sales.
Beattie had worked as a department manager in Gillies 10 years earlier and the co-workers became friends, but drifted apart. They had got back in touch 18 months before the offence, following the breakup of Ms Sales’ marriage.
The accused insisted she had been “nothing but supportive” of the complainer during that period.The court heard relations between the women had cooled following Beattie’s relationship with a man known to Ms Sales, but they were still in frequent contact until the date in question.
Beattie had denied breaking into the house and stealing jewellery and £8,000 in cash between October 10 and 25 last year.
Sheriff Di Emidio said: “I consider it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that you are guilty. The evidence you have given to police is not the same as what you have given today.”
Sentence was deferred for three months for the preparation of reports and Beattie’s bail was continued.