Boss used firm like a private bank account

A COMPANY boss who suspended an executive over an alleged £650,000 embezzlement used his business as a personal bank account, a court has heard.

Bindery Machinery Services (BMS) boss James Brown, 48, admitted that he used his company credit card and bank account for thousands of pounds of private expenditure.

He said he w got Katrena Allan – accused of stealing the huge sum from him – to pay for a diamond ring, his honeymoon and £4000 electric gates for his home.

Allan, whose company Glowworm Books publishes the well-known Maisie the Morningside Cat series, claims she only took back money that she was owed.

At Allan's trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday Mr Brown said he alerted police after returning from abroad to find his company's bank account at the limit of its £600,000 overdraft.

An accountant found several payments to Allan and her company. Mr Brown claimed these payments were not authorised.

But defending, David Nicholson QC claimed that many of the electronic payments were monies that were owed to her when she forked out on company expenses.

Allan, of Ecclesmachan, West Lothian, denies embezzling £656,325 between May 1999 and January 2005.