27/06/2006

Former bank manager jailed for fraud

A bank manager who pleaded guilty to carrying out one of the biggest ever frauds in Scotland has been sentenced to ten years in jail.

Donald MacKenzie, 45, had admitted embezzling £21 million from the Royal Bank of Scotland at the High Court in Edinburgh earlier this month.

MacKenzie had accessed the money through the bank's loan system by establishing false accounts in the names of fictitious customers, while he was working as a business manager at one of the bank's branches in Edinburgh.

Investigators on the case estimate that MacKenzie spent around five years covering his tracks by moving money around in "tens of thousands" of transactions.

It is believed that around £10 million worth of the stolen cash is still to be recovered.

The court heard how MacKenzie had committed the fraud out of a "misguided sense of service", in order to improve the bank's record on business loans, rather than for personal gain. His defence counsel David Burns QC said that Mackenzie felt under "substantial pressure to satisfy loan requirements at the bank."

However, passing sentence, Lord Kinclaven said that it was in the public interest for the sentence to mark the "grave breach of trust" and the serious nature of the crime.

MacKenzie also admitted to the theft of £31,170 that he stole while working for the bank. He was sentenced to an additional two years for the theft, which will run concurrently with the other sentence.

(KMcA/CD)

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