The owners of a Canberra fruit and vegetable business were forced to sell their family home after one of their cashiers stole $60,000 cash in thousands of transactions since 2010, a court has heard.
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Leng Ok, 52, pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining $60,000 from the green grocer where she had worked since 2008.
Ok took cash from the store's till on "thousands" of occasions over several years, disguising the thefts by ringing up items worth less than $1 such as plastic bags and voiding the sales to prompt the till draw to open, the ACT Supreme Court heard on Thursday.
Her crime was uncovered when the business owners' son became suspicious about lost profits unaccounted for and went through CCTV footage and till logs.
One of the owners told the court Ok "begged for forgiveness" when she was confronted with the video footage showing her pocketing sums of cash, but was unable to explain why or for her long she had stolen from the business and did not offer to repay the money.
Both owners spoke of their feelings of betrayal when Ok's crimes were exposed after the long-term employee had expressed sympathy about a year prior when the family was forced to sell their home to repay mounting debits.
"To think I felt comfort from her words of compassion only to know she was lying in my face and had her hand in our pocket the whole time," one owner said.
"I always felt I was a good judge of character, but I don't feel that any longer. I couldn't count the number of times I cried myself to sleep over losing our home.
"I felt sick for days thinking we'd been so naive thinking this person cared and I had trusted her."
The owners' son told the court he'd been forced to let go of some staff "to make ends meet" after Ok stole from the business.
"These employees had families to feed and bills to pay and I felt I was letting them down," he said. "She not only stole from us she caused others to feel financial pressure as well."
In arguing for a suspended sentence and good behaviour bond for Ok, her defence lawyer Jack Pappas said the thefts were unsophisticated and she felt "remorse, shame and embarrassment" over the crimes and was willing to pay interest on top of the $60,000 she had already repaid.
"The effect of the offending upon her, which is not to detract from [the business owners], is one of shame and recognition she's let down not only her employers but her family," he said.
"There's nothing happy about this case, it's a case of tragedy on both sides of the ledger."
Mr Pappas said Ok was undergoing psychotherapy to address post-traumatic stress disorder caused by her troubled childhood in Cambodia and undiagnosed depression, but her therapist had been unable to find the root cause of her offending.
But prosecutor Trent Hickey said the sheer number of fraudulent transactions Ok had rung up, the length of time she had carried on the thefts, and the amount of money stolen warranted a jail term, despite acknowledging her low chances of reoffending.
"It wasn't a one-off theft, it happened thousands of times," he said. "It wasn't unsophisticated; it was deliberate, planned and calculated to avoid detection."
When recording Ok's conviction, Justice John Burns said her use of the till's software to disguise the thefts had shown an element of sophistication.
The court heard Ok had since repaid the $60,000 she had stolen from the business, but the owners were also pursuing interest of $7200.
Ok will return to court for sentencing next Thursday.