A woman splashed out £40,000 on a Halloween party in a castle after stealing over £900,000 from her property firm bosses where she worked as an office manager.
The large property firm in Edinburgh was conned out of a fortune by Emma Hunt over three years by pilfering rent payments made by tenants.
Despite having an office manager salary of £1,800 a month, Emma was able to live like a millionaire by diverting rent payments due to McClean Properties into accounts she controlled, the Daily Record reports.
The 37-year-old used the money to indulge in a spending spree on luxury holidays, hotel stays and expensive cars.
A massive £40,000 of the illegal gains were used to host a lavish Halloween party in a 16th-century castle with the marquee alone costing £12,000.
She treated friends and family to extravagant VIP days out at major sporting events including the Scottish Open golf championship.
As well as shelling out over £6,500 on a trip to Dublin, she also took her mum on a trip to a five-star all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean.
Emma’s crimes were finally uncovered by the bosses after a tenant queried the payments. When giving evidence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court she denied the offences by spinning a web of lies.
The swindler made claims that the boss at the property firm, who is now deceased, allowed her to spend the cash to buy her silence, telling jurors that prostitutes were being put up in flats.
Her claims were rejected by the jury who found her guilty of stealing more than £900,000.
Emma even told friends that she had raked in huge sums of money from running her own cleaning business.
“Hunt is a fantasist but she is also very clever. The way she was able to keep this fraud from being discovered for such a long time shows she knew what she was doing,” a source said.
The crimes started shortly after Emma started working as an office manager at McLean Properties in 2016, the court was told.
A joint minute of agreed facts was read to the jury by Fiscal depute Connor Muir detailing Hunt’s wild spending sprees. These included:
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£39,244 on a Halloween bash in 2018 for around 80 people at the 16th century Fenton Tower, near North Berwick.
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A birthday party in 2016 for herself and 19 others at Musselburgh Racecourse in East Lothian for £3000.
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Hospitality for Ladies’ Day at the same racecourse for 20 people in both 2017 and 2018, paying £6360 and £6600 respectively.
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She bankrolled hospitality packages in 2018 for 12 friends at the Scottish Open at £300 per person.
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£7180 was spent at Murrayfield Stadium for hospitality packages for 10 people at the Scotland v England Six Nations clash.
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At least £23,219 on accommodation around Edinburgh at a string of top-class hotels, such as the swanky Principal and the five-star Caledonian, between 2016 and 2019.
McLean Properties – understood to be controlled by members of Edinburgh’s well-known Crolla family – feared money might be missing for several months before Hunt was caught.
The jury was told Hunt’s key role in controlling financial paperwork allowed her to continue covering her tracks.
Rather than giving the company’s bank details for rent payments, Hunt was using her own. Deposits were taken from student tenants who weren’t usually charged this fee according to company policy.
A later ploy involved invoices being amended by her from outside firms carrying out services including maintenance.
By arranging new payments for old invoices which were already settled, she had even more means to obtain funds. She would contact the firm which received the cash, claim it was a mistake, and have the sums repaid into her own account.
She was finally sacked following investigations by her bosses and the police being called in. A tenant had contacted McLean Properties to say they’d been asked to change the account to whom they made rent payments.
Sheriff John Mundy deferred sentence for reports.
