Shop manager stole and sold 100+ mobile phones

Saturday 13 July 2019

The former manager of Guernsey's Airtel-Vodafone branch has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing 107 mobile phones and selling them to make some money on the side.

It is estimated that Matthew Glen-Williamson stole £66,000 worth of devices between December 2015 and February 2018, and got away with it by using his management-position to manipulate the shop's stock.

The 32-year-old had no previous convictions, but the length of time he was stealing over and the betrayal of his employer's trust was something the Royal Court could not overlook.

Pictured: Glen-Williamson was manager at this shop when he committed his crimes. 

Glen-Williamson was arrested at the start of 2018 after an investigation by Airtel discovered what he had been doing. That was taking the phones, covering his tracks by changing the stock listings, and then selling them on eBay. 

He admitted what he had done to Guernsey Police through a written statement soon after his first interview, and entered a guilty plea at the first opportunity after being charged with fraud by abuse of position. 

Advocate Liam Roffey, acting on Glen-Williamson's behalf, said his client had described his own actions as "deplorable", and couldn't explain or justify what he had done. But he admitted he had done it for personal gain.

Judge Russell Finch said the reason the defendant had committed the crime had to come down to greed, and described this case as a classic example of abusing an employers trust.

"This is not a case of a junior shop assistant swiping a £10 note from the checkout, as bad as that is," he said.

Glen-Williamson will serve 18 months in Les Nicolles prison. Any matter of compensation to Airtel, both for the firm's losses and the money spent on investigating the matter, was left to be taken to civil court.