Employee was expert in $2m embezzlement

A Dunedin executive stole more than $2 million from his employer over the past four years, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.

Grant Leishman, aged 41, was financial controller and computer system administrator for the Dunedin-based construction company Naylor Love.

He transferred $1,253,620 to bank accounts in the Philippines in the names of his wife's two sisters, prosecutor Bill Wright told the court.

Leishman abruptly left New Zealand on April 1, telling his family and employer in farewell letters that he did not intend coming back.

Five months later, however, he voluntarily returned and was arrested.

Yesterday, he accepted responsibility for the theft of $2,535,663 from Naylor Love and the United Ancient Order of Druids, and plead guilty to representative charges of forgery, false accounting and fraudulent use of documents.

Originally, he faced 122 separate charges but these were withdrawn and replaced by the three representative counts.

Through his lawyer, Judith Ablett-Kerr, QC, Leishman admitted obtaining $1,069,249 by forging the name of a co-signatory on 170 separate Naylor Love computer-generated cheques; obtaining $1,405,983.89 from his employer by false accounting 39 times, and fraudulently using three United Ancient Order of Druids cheques to obtain $60,430.

As a result of the offending, Naylor Love suffered a loss of $2,475,233, Mr Wright said, the money being deposited by Leishman into his bank accounts or accounts controlled by him.

In the 39 false accounting offences, Leishman set up fictitious credit details in the computerised payment system, manipulating it so the money was transferred to his bank account each month by way of direct credits. He would then delete the record of payment from the specific ledger, although a record of the amount was still preserved by the computer in the general ledger.

Leishman was also in charge of the Druids' accounting, he and his father being the two authorised cheque signatories. In practice, and to avoid delays, Leishman's father would pre-sign a number of cheques for Leishman so he could make the necessary payments to creditors of the Druids.

He used three of the pre-signed cheques to pay $60,430 into his own bank account. To cover the offending, he listed the payments as having been made to a telephone company, a funeral parlour and a medical centre.

Judge Gary MacAskill remanded Leishman in custody for sentencing next month. Pre-sentence and reparation reports are to be prepared before then, although Mr Wright said he understood that reparation was "a forlorn prospect."

- NZPA