A con artist was locked up yesterday after her crooked past caught up with her in court.
Charlotte Roche was found guilty in May of stealing thousands of pounds from a Scottish car dealership.
Her conviction came just months after she escaped a jail term in England for cheating her ex-boyfriend out of more than £14,000 by claiming to have cancer.
And Roche also appropriated 30,000 euros from her former employers in her native Ireland.
Despite her two previous convictions elsewhere in the UK, Roche – who denied the latest charge – was said by prosecutors to be a first-time offender when she appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
She was at the court again yesterday to be sentenced, having been found guilty after a three-day trial of stealing more than £3,000 from a city motor business.
The 31-year-old, who is now unemployed, stole the cash during her five weeks working for John Clark BMW garage between November and December 2014.
But Sheriff Eric Brown quickly found a number of discrepancies in the social work report that was presented to him at the sentencing – including fake claims she had completed a degree in business administration.
Sheriff Brown said that, following the conclusion of the trial, he had found out through media reports that Roche had previously embezzled more than 30,000 euros from a crash repair shop just outside Dublin.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard yesterday her crime related to 136 customer payments to Ace Autobody Repair shop that Roche had failed to pass on to her bosses.
Sheriff Brown then told her solicitor, who had no knowledge of the Irish scam, that Roche had also dodged jail in England after defrauding Matthew Pilgrim on a dating site, Plenty of Fish, in April 2014.
Roche claimed she was seeing a specialist over fears she had ovarian cancer and insisted she could avoid a six-month wait on the NHS by paying to go private.
Feeling under pressure, Mr Pilgrim agreed to lend her thousands of pounds. He went on to give her more money for post-op care, but eventually realised he had been duped.
Roche avoided jail but was given a six-month suspended sentence at Maidstone Crown Court in February.
Addressing her current defence agent Stuart Murray, Sheriff Brown said: “It appears to me the true circumstances of your client’s history may be very different from the history outlined in the Criminal Justice and Social Work report.”
Roche, whose address was given in court papers as Aberdeen, had her sentence deferred until next month, but was remanded in custody.
Turning to Roche who protests her innocence, Sheriff Brown added: “As far as you are concerned, I simply do not know what to believe.
“I do not think it would be in the public interest to release you on bail given the pending investigations.”
