'Trusted employee' stole up to $400 a day from Woden newsagency

Sonya Maree Breust, 45, was caught on CCTV footage at the NewsXpress newsagency in Westfield Woden modifying point-of-sale records by falsely deleting scanned items from the system then pocketing the cash handed over by customers.

The former assistant manager’s crime was recorded across a seven-week period in 2010 and involved 495 instances of the false deletion of items which the customer paid for and left the store with.

The police statement of facts tendered in May this year said Ms Breust would use the system’s “hot key” button to open the register after deleting the items, then enter another item – frequently one much cheaper, such as a stamp – as the sale.

Only cash transactions were targeted and there was only one occasion where a customer was given a receipt.

Ms Breust would then keep the excess money in the register, often making between $200 and $400 a day from the scheme.

The brazen theft cost the newsagent $6141.10, including $88.90 taken on the day Ms Breust resigned in August 2010.

The statement of facts said then newsagent owner Anthony McCormack reported the matter to police after failing to have the money repaid.

Mr McCormack told The Canberra Times on Tuesday Ms Breust had worked as a trusted employee since he and his wife bought the business in 2006.

“There was no indication [it was her] – we treated her like family, we gave her presents, she gave us presents, we considered her a very loyal employee,” Mr McCormack said.

“We sat her down on two occasions and said ‘we’re losing money, do you know anything about it’, and she said no, completely denied it.”

Mr McCormack, who settled the sale of the store last week, said he had spent more than $10,000 on CCTV footage to capture the thief.

“As we kept finding these discrepancies we introduced different things – high-tech CCTV system, [staff] initials into sales, and also the software company we used wrote more software,” he said.

Ms Breust was sentenced last week to nine months jail for the theft, with five months to be served through periodic detention and the remaining four months suspended.

The former employee received an 18-month good behaviour bond for both the theft and unauthorised modification of data.

Mr McCormack said the sentence was “probably a little bit better” than he had hoped, but came after a long investigation process by the business.

“The amount of time I’ve spent doing that, $6000 wouldn’t cover,” he said. “I would probably feel it’s a bit lenient given what she’s put us through.”