Witness says ‘over-rings’ on till increased

Press, 6 March 1987, Page 7

Witness says ‘over-rings’ on till increased

A man facing trial on four charges of theft amounting to $44,823.79 during his employment as a tavern manager was alleged to have stolen cash register takings from the Oxford Hotel restaurant, at a rate of more than $lOO a day, and to have covered up the deficiencies by marking the amounts on the till tapes as over-rings. Yesterday was the second day of the trial, before Judge Pain and a jury in the District Court, of Alan Wayne McGregor, aged 31, a proprietor. He has been charged

with the thefts, while employed at the tavern by Hancock and Company, of $179.05 on May 29, 1986, $182.95 on May 30, 1986, $205.59 on June 5, 1986 and of various sums of money amounting to $44,256.24 between April 3, 1985 and June 6 last year. The trial will continue today. McGregor, who has denied the charges, is represented by Messrs D. J. Boyle and M. J. Callaghan. Mr R. E. Neave appears for the Crown. Kevin Raymond Amos, senior auditor for Han-

cock and Company, Ltd, A subsidiary of Lion Corporation, Ltd, said his firm ran the Oxford Tavern. In late May, last year, the tavern’s assistant manager spoke to him about the number of overrings occurring on a cash register in the tavern restaurant. On the night of June 5, after completion of business, he checked the till tape and found there were two over-rings recorded, amounting to $12.80. He and the assistant manager then checked

the takings and found there was a deficiency of $2OO. He returned the next morning, when he knew McGregor was on duty and responsible for banking the previous day’s takings. He looked at the till book and found the number of over-rings had been increased to 11, totalling $213. The increase in overrings amounted to the cash difference he had noted the previous night. He and the regional manager went to the

tavera that afternoon. McGregor was told of the alterations to the number and total amount of overrings in the previous day’s takings. He agreed he was responsible for opening the safe that morning and counting the till money, and of being the only person having access to the office that morning. When told he would have been the only person who could have made the alterations he denied having done so. He gave no explanation for the over-rings.

Having made it clear that nobody else had access to the office, McGregor was asked to resign, and his employment was terminated on the spot, Mr Amos said. He said that after McGregor’s dismissal he proposed schedules from analysing cash register tapes and over-rings, covering the period of McGregor’s employment. The investigation showed that the amount of over-rings when McGregor was at work was nearly four times the amount when he was on holidays or absent from

work, Mr Amos said. When McGregor was working, the over-rings averaged $160.08 a day compared with an average of $43 a day when he was on holiday. Mr Amos said the difference between the two totals, multiplied by the 378 days McGregor was on duty during the period of his employment, amounted to a sum of $44,256.24. In the time after McGregor’s dismissal, and to mid-November last year, an analysis of the over-rings showed an average total of $4l a day, Mr Amos said.