Waterstones cashier, 39, who used store’s ‘stamp and save’ loyalty card to steal £11,000 spared jail

A cunning cashier stole more than £11,000 from Waterstones using the bookstore’s own loyalty cards. 

Barry McCann, 39, from Newcastle, swindled thousands of pounds by secretly filling out ‘stamp and save’ cards himself before pocketing the money.

This became common across the national chain – which has now scrapped its ‘stamp and save’ card for a more secure system, North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court heard.

Between February 2017 and July 2018, McCann swindled cash from his employer using cards which gave customers £10 off their purchase if they collected ten stamps on a paper card. 

Stamps could be collected every time £10 was spent in the store.

But a manager at the Blackett Street branch of Waterstones discovered McCann had been secretly filling out the cards himself.

Then, when customers paid for their books in cash, McCann had processed the transactions as loyalty card payments, slipping the falsely filled-out cards into the till and pocketing their £10 notes for himself.

When police were called, after an audit had showed him processing an ‘alarming’ amount of cards, McCann, 39, admitted what he’d done, and it was concluded he had taken around £11,140 in total from the shop.

Prosecuting, Rehana Haque read out a victim personal statement written by a Waterstones staff member who dealt with the accounts, who said the theft had not only affected the business, but caused him personal stress, and left some staff members’ jobs at risk.

McCann’s defence solicitor, Michael Crowe, added: ‘This was happening all over the country because it was easy to do, the staff would have unfettered access to the unstamped cards.’

The court heard McCann had been drinking ‘a couple of bottles of wine a night’ at the time of his crime, while his family struggled for money, and that he had used the money taken from the shop to buy alcohol – telling himself that way he would not be spending the family budget on drink.

The father-of-two, who is now completing a degree in illustration at the University of Sunderland, had since addressed his drinking problem, the court heard.

Between February 2017 and July 2018, McCann swindled cash from his employer using cards which gave customers £10 off their purchase if they collected ten stamps on a paper card. A stock photo of a Waterstones stamp card is pictured above

Mr Crowe said: ‘His view of it at the time was probably clouded by the desperate state that he was in, but I know that since this has come to light he and his wife have been extremely troubled and worried.

‘He is genuinely sorry for allowing himself to do this. It is to his credit that when he suffered the shock of being at work and being taken to task over this he was more than cooperative…

‘I think it goes without saying that he has learned a lesson from this and he is very unlikely to make this sort of mistake again.’

District Judge Kate Meek sentenced McCann to 26 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered him to do 240 hours of unpaid work and up to 15 days of rehabilitation work with the probation service. McCann will have to pay back the sum he stole from Waterstones within four years. 

When police were called, after an audit had showed him processing an ‘alarming’ amount of cards, McCann, 39, admitted what he’d done, and it was concluded he had taken around £11,140 in total from the shop