A HORSE-loving accountant who swindled £220,000 out of the world’s largest arts festival and spent it on showjumping has avoided jail.
Lynn Taylor, the former financial manager of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was given a tagging order and told not to leave her house after 9pm, and ordered to do 200 hours of community service for the embezzlement.
For seven years, Taylor, who said her thieving was the result of stress and depression, took money due for pension schemes and paid it directly into her own account to fund “an extravagant lifestyle”, indulging her equine passions.
Colleague of the pony fan noticed in 2015 that something wasn’t quite right and confronted the accountant.
Yesterday, at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Taylor, who had been living in Portugal but is now back in the capital, was sentenced, with Sheriff Frank Crowe saying her “gross breach of trust” would normally result in “an immediate custodial sentence.”
He added that Taylor had “deliberately committed on many occasions over a significant period of time to indulge in an expensive hobby at the expense of your employers who are a charity responsible for running a festival with a huge international reputation and one which the public expect to run efficiently despite the huge demands upon the organisers.”
The sherriff said Taylor’s early confession and repayment of the money stolen went in her favour.
The finance manager was given an eight-month Restriction of Liberty Order, as well as a 12-month, 200 hour community payback order.
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