A George bookkeeper, Gillian Mary Wileman (56) was sentenced by the George Regional court to eight years in prison for 233 counts of fraud alternatively theft on Friday, 12 May 2023.
The convicted bookkeeper stole over R7.6 million from a company that she worked for between the period starting from 2016 until 2022.
The 56-year-old was employed as a bookkeeper at Ideal Lighting in George. Her duties included capturing of bank statement transactions and administering payments to creditors and suppliers of ideal Lighting. The accused had access to the preparation of payments needed to be made from Ideal Lighting to various creditors.
The Hawks investigation successfully proved in court that she diverted payments into her account for personal gain, instead of paying money from the business to the creditors of Ideal Lighting between 29 January 2016 to 31 December 2020.
Thorough investigation revealed that the accused concealed the movement of the said funds.
The matter was then reported to the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation for further investigation and later led to her being summoned to appear in court on 25 November 2022.
Wileman was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment of which 6 years is suspended for 5 years.
Effectively, Wileman will serve eight (8) years direct imprisonment.
The Provincial Head of the Western Cape, Major General Mathipa Makgato welcomed the sentence and commended the team for their authentic work for using their investigation skills which led to the arrest and conviction of Wileman.
