Glenda Ivy Burgess found guilty of 18 charges over $12 million fraud from Adelaide Brighton Cement

An accounts manager who wiped out $12 million worth of debt from one of Adelaide’s biggest employers with no known motive has been found guilty.

Glenda Ivy Burgess has been found guilty of stealing millions of dollars from an Adelaide cement company.

A jury took more than four hours to return with a majority verdict to 18 counts of deception and dishonestly dealing with documents.

Glenda Burgess outside the Adelaide Magistrates Court in 2019. Picture: Mike Burton

Burgess was an accounts worker for Adelaide Brighton Cement when she falsified business records to hide millions in dollars of debt belonging to another company, Concrete Supply.

63-year-old from Hillbank was charged with 18 counts of aggravated deception over the offending.

Peter Longson, during his opening address, said Concrete Supply had received $32 million worth of product between August 1, 2009 and September 30, 2017, but had only paid for $20 million.

Burgess used her position as head of a team of accounts workers to credit other payments to Concrete Supply, reducing their debt by $3 million.

The offending came to light when an interstate managed noticed discrepancies in the books, which included as much as $100,000 being moved from another company to Concrete Supply’s debts.

Other manual entries involved debts from the Concrete Supply account being manually allocated to another customer’s account. He said these entries amounted to about $5m.

Mr Longson told the jury these manual transactions occurred under the username “Glenda B”, which belonged to Ms Burgess.

The jury left to consider their verdict just before midday and returned with guilty verdicts just after 5pm.

A jury is required to deliberate for more than four hours if they return a majority verdict of ten or more jurors.

Mr Longson applied for Burgess’ bail to be revoked, citing the seriousness of the offending and the long period of time over which is occurred.

Adelaide Brighton Cement at Peterhead. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Glenda Ivy Burgess this week. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

He said a period of imprisonment to be served in jail, rather than on home detention, was almost certain.

Steven Apps, for Burgess, said his client was employed and had spent three years on bail with no incident.

Judge Adam Kimber refused to revoke Burgess’s bail but said he would need to hear more during the next hearing about what had driven her to cancel out the debt.

“One of the issues when it comes to sentence is why this took place,” he said.

“It is an interesting position that there is simply no evidence of reward or connection.

“That will be one of the important issues when arriving at sentence.”

Burgess will next face court in November for sentencing submissions