Petrol station supervisor steals $60k to help fund gambling addiction

Brett Rudman was sentenced to home detention and ordered to pay reparations at Wellington District Court.

A Wellington man stole more than $60,000 from petrol stations he supervised to fund his gambling addiction.

Brett Laurence Rudman was sentenced to home detention and ordered to pay $13,000 of reparation in Wellington District Court today.

The 29-year-old stole tobacco stock, Motor Trade Association (MTA) vouchers and cash from BP Karori and BP Newlands over a five-week period last year.

Rudman did the day to day running and administration of the two sites and had been working for the company for about six years.

In November, a manager noticed a cash deposit hadn't been banked at BP Karori.

Later audits discovered $1300 of MTA vouchers hadn't been reimbursed and $2668 of tobacco missing from the site.

In total, $10,975 of cash deposits were missing from BP Karori and $49,552 from BP Newlands.

In sentencing, Judge Peter Hobbs said it was clear Rudman's gambling addiction played a part in his offending.

"It was also exacerbated by your feelings of financial stress following you becoming aware that you were going to become a father."

Judge Hobbs said it was a significant breach of trust.

"You were an employee and held a significant amount of responsibility and by stealing from your employer, you have breached that trust."

In a victim impact statement, Rudman's former employer Rodney Earnshaw said the impact on the company was "far-reaching" and "distressing".

"Everyone is now on edge and on the lookout for possible discrepancies, delays and excuses.

"It is extremely difficult to impose and monitor perfect regimes to prevent such fraud - but nearly impossible when the fraud is committed by the gate keeper."

Earnshaw said they had to install security cameras in all site offices, which hadn't been well received by administrative staff who felt like they were being "spied on".

Judge Hobbs took Rudman's early guilty plea and lack of previous criminal offending into account when sentencing.