Natalie Taylor, 42, was given a four and a half year sentence when she admitted embezzling £90,000 from a machinery supplies firm.

After the case at Airdrie Sheriff Court, company boss David Paterson told of the moment he realised Ms Taylor was a serial thief.

Mr Paterson, 61, who owns D&S Plant Services in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, said his small family firm could have gone out of business had she not been caught. He had no idea of the crook’s criminal background when he employed her in October 2022.

In 2019, Ms Taylor was jailed for four years and eight months for stealing £185,000 from four firms in Lanarkshire and Glasgow. After being freed from prison, she persuaded D&S to employ her by impressing at an interview and producing a glowing CV.

Mr Paterson said: “She told us she was fully experienced. She had moved house from Glasgow to Hamilton and wanted to change jobs.

“Her CV looked brilliant and I got a good report from someone who supplied a reference for her.

“She was full of life and popular, and she would buy lunch for the other workers a couple of times a week.

“She got a taxi to work every day and clearly liked designer clothes.

“I visited her home in Hamilton and she must have spent a fortune on the house and garden.

“She explained all of the spending by saying her partner was working offshore and earning plenty of money.

“But it looks like she was using our cash to pay for everything.”

Mr Paterson said he noticed something was wrong in April 2023 when he happened to log on to the company’s accounting system. Payments supposedly being made to suppliers had instead gone into bank accounts set up by Ms Taylor.

Mr Paterson said: “She had created three accounts using my signature. It’s frightening how easy it was to do that. There were 72 transactions involving those accounts.

“One of our workers then Googled her name online and we found out about her background. I felt sick and couldn’t believe what I was reading.”

The firm, which employs around a dozen people, has been going for 26 years.

Mr Paterson added: “I’m a great believer in keeping money aside in case anything happens, but she could have finished us.

“Our healthy financial position and the fact this happened at a busy time of year meant I didn’t have to lay off anyone, but had it been during the quieter summer months the outcome would have been different.”

Ms Taylor was originally charged with embezzling £119,736.78 from the company but had her guilty plea accepted in relation to the lesser sum.

Mr Paterson said: “I’m glad she’s been jailed but we have no hope of getting our money back. We also paid around £15,000 in fees to sort out the mess she left behind.

“It’s been a lesson for us and now criminal background checks are standard when we’re recruiting.”