Heartless fraudster who plundered £90k from Lanarkshire family business behind bars

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A devastated family say they are "hanging on by the skin of our teeth" after a trusted employee stole £90,000 from the business they'd built up over many years of hard work.

Crooked bookkeeper Andrea Cochrane, who worked as a company secretary at East Kilbride-based A Steel & Son Contracts Ltd for more than 30 years, has been sentenced to 28 months in jail.

The callous former employee previously admitted scamming thousands from the family business to fund a £700 a day gambling addiction - despite being treated as a friend of the Steel family, and invited to weddings and birthday parties.The Lanarkshire Live app is available to download now.

Get all the news from your area – as well as features, entertainment, sport and the latest on Lanarkshire’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic – straight to your fingertips, 24/7.The free download features the latest breaking news and exclusive stories, and allows you to customise your page to the sections that matter most to you.Head to the App Store and never miss a beat in Lanarkshire - iOS - Android Cochrane, from Bellshill, was back in Hamilton Sheriff Court this week for sentencing after it was postponed from a hearing last month.The 52-year-old was fired from A Steel & Son Contracts after horrified bosses discovered a string of bogus payments.An initial debit of £2500 was first queried, before a review discovered £28,000 had been made to an accountancy firm - when it should have only been £10,000.Following investigations, it was revealed that Cochrane had labelled a series of high value transactions as 'Turner Accountancy' but had used the details of her own account to pocket the cash.More than 300 transactions were discovered over an 18-month period.Cochrane admitted