A woman who invented her father’s death to get time off work took a large kitchen knife to court after being convicted of that fraud, a court has heard.
Fiona Gillen, 46, of High Street, Alyth, admitted at Dundee Sheriff Court that on February 18, at the court in Courthouse Square, she possessed a kitchen knife, while on bail.
Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told the court Gillen had attended at the court for sentence on the previous matter, her backpack was searched by security officer Alastair Smith and she was found to be carrying a black-handled kitchen knife.
The security officer alerted a nearby police officer, Constable Gordon Hay, who searched her bag and found the knife, which was on its own in the main section.
Keys and a purse were found in the front pocket and Gillen voluntarily stated that she had forgotten about the knife being in the bag.
She was arrested and charged and her response was that she had been moving cutlery around the previous day.
Ms Robertson told the court that at an interview at police HQ Gillen told officers she had been given kitchen utensils by a friend, including three or four kitchen knives.
“She said she moved them but had left the knife behind in the backpack. She was kept in custody overnight and released on bail the following day.”
Solicitor David Duncan pointed out that Gillen is on a community payback order, which is almost completed, and said the sheriff was duty bound to call for a social work report.
Sheriff McGowan allowed Gillen’s bail order to continue and granted the Crown motion to forfeit the knife.
Gillen previously admitted conning her NHS bosses into paying her for weeks while she was off work with fictitious “bereavement reaction”.
She was placed on a community payback order with 150 hours unpaid work when she appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Gillen lied to her supervisor at the Scottish Bowel Screening Centre at Dundee’s Kings Cross Hospital that her dad had died and even presented medical certificates from her doctor who diagnosed “bereavement reaction” to support her story.
She pleaded guilty to two charges of obtaining money by fraud from NHS Tayside between March 9 2011 and April 22 2011.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard she asked Scottish Bowel Screening Centre supervisor Linda Brownlee for paid leave to attend the funeral.
Admin worker Gillen then told her boss she was suffering from stress as a result of bereavement and obtained a doctor’s certificate.
Gillen kept up the pretence for more than a month before her ploy was discovered in April 2011.
A source said: “Eventually red flags were raised and an investigation was launched. There was no record of a Patrick Gillen dying in the Ipswich area, as she had claimed.
“An investigator managed to track him down and he said he hadn’t seen Fiona for over 18 months before this all happened.”
Gillen now works as a housekeeper.
Sheriff McGowan deferred sentence on Gillen on the new matter until November 1.