Sin Bin: No jail time for accountant who embezzled £43,000 from Glasgow firm

Douglas McAllister, 48, made sex tapes in a hotel room he paid for using the company credit card in the course of his criminal actions carried out when he took advantage of the serious illness of the owner of Mandors haberdashery in Renfrew Street to siphon off money.

McAllister, who began an affair with a colleague 14 years his junior, who features in the sex tapes he left in the Mandors office, stole money by writing cheques to cash and diverting BACS transfers, and went on a spending spree with the company credit card, including buying a car and treating his mistress.

Karen Deutsch, who opened the business in 1977 with husband Michael told in a victim impact statement given to the court how the actions of church member McAllister had almost ruined the company after he was brought in to help after she had taken ill.

Mrs Deutsch, said: “The impact Douglas McAllister’s actions created on our business was, and continues to be, profound. From being a profitable company at the end of each financial year, losses were experienced three years in a row. At the end of 2015 the loss was over £50,000.

“After nearly 40 years of successful trading, the business was in jeopardy of going bankrupt.”

Sheriff Kenneth Hogg, who sentenced McAllister at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday, said the crime was “particularly mean spirited”.

McAllister avoided a jail term after borrowing cash to pay back the Deutsch family.

The father-of-three will wear a tag for six months and complete 275 hours of unpaid work.