It was a $14,500 mis-steak.
Elyse Elizabeth Wilson (44), who misappropriated a mountain of meat, may now have butchered her future employment prospects, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.
She appeared before Judge Michael Turner applying for a discharge without conviction after admitting a charge of theft in a special relationship.
But the judge ruled the possible consequences of a blemish on Wilson's record, which amounted to potential problems securing work, were nothing more than generic and speculative.
"The court should not hide such relevant information [from employers] particularly where dishonesty is involved,” he said, dismissing the application.
Wilson had been employed by a catering company for four years when the food fraud began.
On August 6 last year, the court heard, she arranged for 40kg of meat — worth more than $1000 — to be delivered to a central Dunedin bar.
She met the driver at the venue and helped unload the goods.
But instead of giving the meat to the bar, Wilson simply loaded it into her car and took it away.
A week later, she repeated the crime at the same location with a haul worth nearly $7000.
Minutes after the truck had left, Wilson called the driver to inform them there was one carton missing, so he returned to drop it off.
"The driver could see the defendant carrying the meat from the rear of the bar to a vehicle over the road,” court documents said.
On September 17, the company called police.
When officers arrived, they found six large slabs of meat worth $600, which had not been paid for, in Wilson’s car.
"You’d been caught red-handed,” the judge said.
Wilson admitted stealing more than $14,500 of meat in total and said she had done it to help out family and friends.
She claimed she intended to repay the debt but her counsel, Deborah Henderson, told the court yesterday that, despite getting a new job, she had saved nothing.
"There was clearly planning and premeditation,” Judge Turner said.
"You had to place the order, create an invoice, you had to make the arrangements with the delivery driver to take it to the bar and organise to be there yourself or have others collect the meat.”
The catering company faced embarrassment, he said, when it pursued the bar over the bill, only to be told they had not received the documented goods.
Wilson will be sentenced in June.
The judge called for a report to assess the viability of an electronically monitored sentence.
