An accountant who stole more than $100,000 from two employers will undergo a social inquiry report after the court heard she suffered from manic depression.

Doylette Love-Ann Duclos, 30, of Summit View Drive, Bailey's Bay, had originally pleaded not guilty to stealing $57,403 from Overseas Partners Ltd. (OPL) between September 1999 and March 2000.

She had also denied stealing $56,824 from DBH Holdings Ltd. between July and October last year.

But in Supreme Court yesterday the mother of two pleaded guilty to 15 counts of stealing, 15 counts of forgery, 12 counts of uttering false documents and two counts of fraudulent false accounting at OPL.

And she pleaded guilty to one charge of stealing from DBH holdings who trade as Island Satellite Systems.

The court heard how she used the DBH money to pay for work permits, bills and payroll tax at Le Figaro restaurant.

Her husband Paul Duclos had bought the Reid Street eatery in August 2001. Press reports at the time said it had been sold for a knock-down price because it came with debt.

Crown Counsel Juan Wolffe said Duclos had forged signatures of senior figures at OPL where she worked as a corporate accountant and then personally accepted the funds from the Bank of Bermuda.

The company then alerted the Police's commercial crime unit who began investigations. Duclos was arrested and left OPL.

In August 2000 she joined DBH Holdings as a book keeper but within a year she was issuing cheques to herself and others and again the Police were called in.

Mr. Wolffe argued there was no merit in the fact that Duclos had paid the stolen money back to her former employers because she had benefitted from the cash for her business.

Mr. Wolffe said: "If someone steals $1,000, puts it on the horses and wins $3,000, gets caught and says I will pay it back the $1,000, they still benefit from the $2,000. So paying back the $1,000 should not be given much weight."

He said Duclos had abused a position of trust and by using the names of other employees at OPL had put them in harm's way.

Duclos had only admitted the offences because she had been caught said Mr. Wolffe and he said she not stolen out of necessity.

"Mrs. Duclos used the accounts of OPL and DBH as her own personal bank.

"We are not talking about a situation where person steals to put food into her child's mouth.

"We're talking about where money was used to finance another business.

"It's a simple case of greed."

And Mr. Wolffe said despite investigations continuing about the OPL money Duclos still went on to commit the same offence at DBH.

"You would have thought the investigations into OPL would have put her back on the right track, that she would have learned from it and moved on but that clearly did not happen.

"She went to another place and stole money."

He said the maximum sentence for stealing was five years in jail while forgery and uttering false documents carried a seven year maximum sentence.

However defence lawyer Victoria Pearman produced a letter from St. Brendan's Doctor Donald MacKenzie which showed Duclos was a manic depressive.

She argued that Duclos was stealing to put food in the mouths of her children because she had helped fund the family business which helped support the family.

Ms Pearman said the affects on the victim of the crime had been diminished because the money was paid back and by coming clean Duclos had helped minimise publicity.

She said Duclos, who previously had a clean record, had "torpedoed her professional career" while "wreaking havoc on herself and her family".

Duclos had suffered mental problems going back to childhood suggested Ms Pearman. Assistant Justice Norma Wade-Miller queried a paragraph in the doctor's report which said Duclos would "struggle emotionally in a prison environment".

Mrs. Wade-Miller said anyone would struggle emotionally in a prison environment.

She said the Doctor needed to explain this in court and she ordered a social inquiry report and adjourned the case until December 17.

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