THE OFFICE manager of a fire and flood firm who cooked the books to pay herself thousands of pounds worth of unauthorised overtime faces a possible jail sentence.

Wendy Shaw, 47, boosted her own earnings for six and a half years by falsifying spreadsheets at Stirling-based Total Reinstatement Services.

She covered her tracks by telling the firms’s accountants to email all payroll returns straight to her, and ordered them to stop sending paper copies to the company’s managing director.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that she was rumbled in 2014 when the managing director, Brian Gillies, decided to celebrate a good year for the firm with a round of staff bonuses.

Mr Gillies, 57, requested a breakdown from the accountants of the monthly earnings of all staff for the preceding 12 months.

Prosecutor Samantha Brown said: “He received that breakdown... and on examination he observed that the accused had been getting overpaid.”

Miss Brown said Shaw was called to a meeting, suspended, and escorted from the premises.

A sheaf of letters from the accountants about the payroll, addressed to Mr Gillies, were found in her desk drawer. The depute fiscal said Mr Gillies had never received them.

Shaw, of Cowie, Stirlingshire, pleaded guilty to defrauding Total Reinstatement Services of £30,000 between 2008 and 2014.

Deferring sentence, Sheriff John Mundy said a custodial sentence was one of the options available to him given the seriousness of the crime.