A woman jailed for stealing thousands of pounds from a children’s charity and a family-run coffee firm in Fife has been ordered to repay more than £36,000 under Proceeds of Crime laws.
In January 2025, Beverley Bennie, 37, was sentenced to 20 months in prison after she admitted embezzling a total of £96,371 from Kids Come First and vending firm Myrtle Coffee in Kirkcaldy.
At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, a confiscation order for £36,036.50 was made, to be paid in six months.
Further assets can be seized in future if they become available to Bennie.
Sineidin Corrins, Deputy Procurator Fiscal for Specialist Casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: “Beverley Bennie was convicted of crimes that displayed a betrayal of trust by someone who had financial oversight of funds from a children’s charity and a family business.
“She showed no regard for the impact her crimes would have on vulnerable children or the effect it would have on those trying to run an honest business.
“We take such criminality very seriously. This confiscation order shows that the Crown will not stop at prosecution.
“These funds will be added to those already gathered from Proceeds of Crime and will be re-invested in Scottish communities through the CashBack for Communities programme.”
Bennie had been a business manager with Myrtle Coffee, which supplies wholesale coffee and vending services and was responsible for petty cash and an electronic cash account.
Cash was found to be missing from the safe and during an audit, it was revealed Bennie had carried out numerous fraudulent transactions between September 2017 and September 2023, totalling £83,599.93.
The court was also told that in 2018, Bennie took on the role of treasurer with Kids Come First, a charity based at the Benarty Centre in Ballingry.
In 2021, it was revealed the charity had limited cash reserves and some staff members could not be paid.
Fife Council instructed a forensic accountant to investigate and unauthorised cash transfers totalling £12,771.69 by accused between December 2020 and September 2021 were discovered.
The great Scottish tea blag
A Perthshire businessman who claimed to have created the Queen’s favourite brew at “Scotland’s first tea plantation” has been convicted of an elaborate £550k fraud.
Thomas Robinson – better known as Tam O’Braan – made up awards and qualifications to blag sales from some of the country’s top hotels and stores including the Dorchester, the Balmoral and Fortnum and Mason.
The father-of-four also duped growers from around Scotland into buying Camellia Sinesis tea plants from his remote facility in the hills of Amulree, south of Aberfeldy.
In reality, the crops were purchased wholesale from a plantation in northern Italy.
Read details of the amazing trial here.
£900 drill theft
A habitual thief stole a £900 drill from a Perth industrial store.
Martin Blyth, 33, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court to be sentenced for the theft, as well as hits at three city Co-ops.
He stole £63 worth of alcohol from the Tulloch store on March 16 last year, groceries and cigarettes worth £143 from the North Muirton branch three days later and cigarettes worth £242 from the Letham store the following day.
On April 8 last year, he stole the drill from Highland Industrial Supplies at the city’s Inveralmond Industrial estate.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Hodgson said the accused would enter the Co-ops and pretend he was buying the items.
When his card declined, he would just leave with the items.
When he stole the drill by exploiting the “on-tick type of purchasing,” Blyth was working as a plumber and was known to staff.
Solicitor Lyndsey Barber said: “He’s taken steps – not just lip service.”
Blyth, of Nimmo Place, was placed on a six-month curfew by Sheriff Clair McLachlan at Perth Sheriff Court.
She said: “You’re sailing close to the custodial wind.”
Grooming attempt thwarted
A pair of undercover police officers thwarted a Dundee paedophile’s attempts to groom children on social media. Joseph Nicholson, 40, sent a string of nauseating messages to two profiles he believed were an underage boy and girl.
Cupar creep
A creep who believed he was talking to a child bombarded an undercover police officer with a slew of sexual messages.
Andrew Kerr, 35, is now a registered sex offender after he admitted trying to indecently communicate with a child for more than two months from his Fife home.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told how Kerr thought he was talking to a 14-year-old girl on the adult chat room site Chat Avenue.
The “girl’s” profile picture included a photo of her in school uniform, with her age clearly stated in the biography.
Fiscal depute Stewart Duncan said Kerr “went into in-depth descriptions” of sexual abuse he wished to carry out on the child.
Kerr, of Crossgate, Cupar, pled guilty to repeatedly sending messages of a sexual nature and making reference to sexual activity while trying to communicate indecently with a child between November 25 2024 and January 28 this year.
Sheriff Alastair Carmichael deferred sentencing on Kerr until next month for a social work report to be prepared and made him subject to the sex offenders register on an interim basis.
Chef jailed
A Perthshire chef has been jailed for historical sexual abuse. Thomas McPhee, the former head chef and manager at the Red Brolly Inn in Ballinluig, has been imprisoned for 58 weeks after admitting offences against two teenagers in the mid-2000s.
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