Rebecca Leigh Betts, 33, pleaded guilty before she was sentenced by the Queanbeyan Local Court. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
A family-run plumbing company trusted Rebecca Leigh Betts with their banking and accounting details. Making use of this, she swindled them out of almost $670,000.
Earlier this week, the 33-year-old was handed a three-and-a-half year jail sentence by the Queanbeyan Local Court over her long-running fraud.
According to court documents, she is also known as Rebecca Wythes and Rebecca Cox and had been living in Yass, NSW before her sentencing.
The Queanbeyan plumbing company, who Region has chosen not to name, hired her as their office administrator in early 2021 and her tasks included attending the reception, managing the payroll and dealing with their accounts.
In order to do her job, she was given the details to a bank account connected with the company.
Betts worked this way for a year. But then from February 2022 to September 2023, she created 122 fake invoices on the company’s accounting system and sent herself $620,000.
These invoices ranged from $1000 to $10,000. She described them as ‘Supplier Payments’ and made them alongside other, legitimate invoices for suppliers.
But she didn’t stop here, as she also made 94 overpayments to herself in that same period that totalled about $49,000.
These overpayments ranged from $46 to $2196.
Meanwhile, the plumbing company had been performing a lot of work over that time, but its owners saw their accounts were often in debt and they constantly had trouble paying suppliers.
After contacting a business consultant to ask for their services, one of the owners found several discrepancies in their business transactions when reviewing their records in October 2023.
The owner then conducted a detailed review and uncovered Betts’ fraud.
Police began an investigation before she was arrested at the Queanbeyan Police Station in October 2024.
She pleaded guilty to six counts of obtaining property by deception before she was sentenced on Tuesday (17 March).
As she was handed a two-year non-parole period she will be released from custody in March 2028, but she has also been ordered to pay the total amount she stole back to her victims as compensation.
Original Article published by Albert McKnight on Region Canberra.
