Despite character statements on her behalf and a declaration of her own ambition to save people from drug addiction, a 53-year-old St. David's woman was yesterday given a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for thefts totalling over $400,000 from the Bank of Butterfield.

After listening to lawyer Llewellyn Peniston's mitigating arguments, a parade of character witnesses - which included an Opposition Senator - and Maureen Rose Marie Trott's tearful apology for committing the offences, Assistant Justice Phillip Storr told her he had a responsibility to protect the society and reinforce community values.

“I have got no alternative but to find that these were serious, serious offences committed over a long period of time” by someone in a position of trust, he said at the end of a sentencing hearing which lasted over an hour.

Justice Storr added that he accepted witness testimony that she is of good character and that she is very unlikely to reoffend.

“But I have got to mark society's disapproval for deliberate, calculated and well executed theft...”

Mrs. Trott pleaded guilty in May to ten counts of stealing the money over a ten-year period while she was employed at the Bank of Butterfield.

She stole the money between January 1988 and February 1998 but it was not until 1996 that the bank discovered a six-figure discrepancy in their accounts.

An investigation was launched in 1998 which revealed that Mrs. Trott had conducted a series of fraudulent transactions.

The Crown was represented in yesterday's proceedings by Juan Wolffe with Koshea Scott assisting.

Mr. Wolffe told the court that Mrs. Trott had initially accepted responsibility but “denied any real deliberate intent” when first questioned by the bank's auditors and later said she did not remember the specifics.

He then detailed the ten year spree which included creating fictitious loan documents and putting the money into accounts held by her friends and relatives without their knowledge.

“In essence, the defendant used savings accounts of friends to process fictitious loan applications by falsifying the details and signatures on the loan application,” said Mr. Wolffe. “Funds were then transferred to the relevant account and she then withdrew monies for her own benefit.”

She later bypassed the process of creating a fictitious loan by transferring money directly to herself from a branch clearing account, Mr. Wolffe continued.

“Throughout the course of her illegal activity the defendant used actual and false names to create and maintain fictitious loans,” he said.

Loans were maintained and paid off with the bank's own money and the scam only stopped when the bank started using a new computer system in 1996.

“The defendant admits that she committed the above offences, but failed or refused to clearly or fully describe exactly how or why she carried them out,” Mr. Wolffe said. “In statements to the Police, the defendant stated that she used the monies to pay bills.”

In mitigation, Mr. Peniston asked for a sentence of no more than two years. He asked the court to take into account her age, the fact that she did not have a record and that she was very unlikely to reoffend. He added that she had saved the court time and money by her guilty plea and urged the court to consider the lengthy period between the time of the offences and being brought to court.

He said that Mrs. Rose was in an “intense cycle of financial pressure” when the offences were committed, as she had to take care of an ailing mother and her younger siblings.

The court's public gallery was full of Mrs. Trott's supporters. Senator Leonard Santucci, her pastor and Rev. Milton Burgess - as well as her former employer Glen Smith - all testified on her behalf, saying she had been in positions of trust and had not violated it.

Choking back tears, Mrs. Trott apologised to her friends, family and the bank, thanked her supporters, said that God had forgiven her and that she was determined to help people trapped in the cycle of drug addiction.