Prison for assistant manager who stole over £16k from Trinity sports shop

Saturday 14 October 2017

A 46-year-old man who stole over £16,000 from Lyndale Sports and £1,400 from Howtex Limited has been sentenced to 21 months in prison by the Royal Court.

David Timothy Keith Quemard was facing 50 counts of larceny as a servant for offences covering a period of two years.

Quemard worked for Lyndale Sports Limited, a company which provides work and sports clothing as well as design and embroidery services, as Assistant Manager from July 2012 to May 2014. His advocate, Jane Grace, told the court he had sole responsibility for customers' orders from the physical designs to the embroidering and the delivery. He was also in charge of ordering stock and invoicing the customers. 

Crown Advocate Richard Pedley told the court that Quemard first stole from Lyndale seven months after starting his employment. This took place just a month after Quemard had set up his own business, Interior Linens in February 2013. Quemard diverted several payments due to Lyndale Sports by presenting customers with invoices for his own business for payments and providing his company's bank details in Lyndale invoices. He also stole stock items, ordered stock and logos through Lyndale for his own business and stole cash payments made by Lyndale customers. He also undertook work for his own business during his working hours at Lyndale. The total prejudice to the company, excluding the costs for stolen stock items, amounted to £16,000.

The court heard that Quemard also stole vinyl from Lyndale to advertise his company on his own car. He also misappropriated embroidery logo templates from Lyndale, in the same manner he had done so while in his previous employment at Howtex Limited. Quemard was authorised to use the files but not to retain or use them outside of the company, which he did using a pen drive. In total, he stole 117 logos from Howtex for a total value of £1,400. 

Quemard's activities, which Crown Advocate Pedley said he committed by "abusing his position of considerable trust," were discovered in May 2014 when a customer enquired about items missing from an order, while Quemard was on leave. He added that most of what Quemard had stolen had been used to keep his own business afloat.

Advocate Jane Grace told the court that Quemard had originally set up his own businesses to supply others and that it was not in competition to Lyndale. She explained that he had the sole responsibility of most areas of the business, adding: "It was the lack of checks and balances which was the ultimate temptation that led him to steal stock to supply his own business." 

She urged the court to be lenient in its sentencing, stating that Quemard had volunteered a lot of information during the investigation. She added that the delay in bringing the matter to court had led him to have suicidal thoughts. She said: "He lived for three years in fear of a custodial sentence. For three years and three months, he has not been able to plan for the future." 

Handing down his sentence, the Bailiff Sir William Bailhache, who was sitting with Jurats Sally Sparrow and Anthony Olsen, said that Quemard's actions were a total abuse of trust. He said: "While it may have been foolish of your employer to leave you in a position without checks and balances. But all that does is emphasise the extent of your own abuse of trust. (...) It was dishonest." 

The Bailiff added he couldn't see any exceptional circumstances in the case to avoid a custodial sentence but did take into account the delay in judicial proceedings. He however said he wouldn't take the impact on Quemard's family into account. He said: "It is not right to come to us and tell us 'What about my family?' The truth is you should have thought of your family before coming to court."

He then sentenced Quemard to 18 months in prison for his actions at Lyndale, with an additional three months for the logos stolen at Howtex, describing the 21 months' imprisonment as the "appropriate sentence."