Robyn Lorraine Lawrie $1.4m fraud: Fishing mag directors’ anger at theft

Two directors of a South East Queensland fishing publication who were ripped off to the tune of $1.4m by a trusted employee have spoken out about their trauma.

Directors of Fishing Monthly Magazine, Matthew Drinkhall and Stephen Morgan speak about their former employee and friend, Robyn Lorraine Lawrie's $1.4M fraud.

• Inside the scam: Trust abused to feed gambling addiction

A popular Queensland fishing magazine company’s directors has opened up about how their friend and trusted employee defrauded them of $1.4 million to fund her gambling addiction.

They said they had endured the heartbreak of laying off two-thirds of their staff and were now so wary they became alarmed if “10 cents’’ went missing.

Brassall’s Robyn Lorraine Lawrie, 50, pleaded guilty in Beenleigh District Court on Thursday, January 19, to six counts of fraud.

The court heard Lawrie wrote out cheques to herself from Queensland Fishing Monthly, where she was formerly a director of the company, for more than five years.

The total amount stolen was $1,395,63.50 between 2008 and 2013.

Lawrie was convicted and given a head sentence of seven years.

Robyn Lorraine Lawrie jailed for $1.4M fraud.

She was ordered to serve 11 months in prison and will be eligible for parole on December 19 this year.

The court heard Lawrie was driven to the crimes partly because of her former partner’s alleged horrific, controlling relationship and that she had never gambled before meeting him.

Queensland Fishing Monthly magazine directors, Matthew Drinkall and Stephen Morgan, said the sentence was not enough and had taken almost a decade after charges were first laid.

“I think the sentence was very light,” Mr Morgan said.

“She gets 11 months in jail, while we had 10 years of hard labour to get back to where we were.”

Mr Morgan said they had to lay off 16 of their staff out of a team of 25.

“That was the first time I’d ever made anyone redundant,” Mr Morgan said.

“These were good people who worked hard, who didn’t do the wrong thing and they lost their job because of it.”

Matthew Drinkall said that while coping with the debt seemed nearly impossible, their clients were loyal to them.

“We had to have the tough meetings with all our clients, one by one, and had to explain to them that we would pay them back if they just give us a chance — and they all did,” he said.

“Our clients and staff rallied behind us and made sure we were still in business.”

Directors of Fishing Monthly Magazine, Matthew Drinkall (left) and Stephen Morgan (right). Picture: Danielle Noney.

Mr Drinkall’s wife, Sharon Munday, said both her husband and Mr Morgan’s health went downhill while they were struggling to repay debts.

“Matt and Steve both lost 10 kilos because of the stress and worry that they were going to lose their livelihood,” Ms Munday said.

“Steve had to ride a bike to work for a year.”

She said Lawrie was like family to them.

“We used to take the kids over to swim in her pool, she was like family,” Ms Munday said.

“Matt photographed her wedding, her pregnancy, we’d all go for dinner all the time.

“And then for her to look you straight in the eyes and lie to a friend you’ve known for 10 years, it’s just awful.

“She is a very skilful, cunning, devious liar.”

Ms Munday said that she would leave early from work to use the fraudulently-obtained money to gamble at the Treasury Casino.

“She would say she needed to pick the kids up, but meanwhile she would ring her mother-in-law to pick the kids up so she could go to the casino and gamble,” she said.

Mr Morgan said at the end of the day they were proud of how they recovered from such a monumental loss to the company.

“I was always proud because when we recovered from this situation, we did it all the right way,” he said.

“We always wanted to do the right thing, we paid all the redundancies we owed.

“I had to ride a bike 24km to work for 12 months because of it.

“And within three years we paid off all the bills, the redundancies, the tax department and started paying off our building again, but it took 10 years of our lives to do it.

“That was supposed to be our retirement.

“We are still under the minimum wage because we had to do that.”

Mr Morgan said that he had now become more wary of people.

“You’ve got to trust people, but you just always have to double check them,” he said.

“If someone takes 10 cents out of my account now I know.

“10 years ago we were very naive but we are deadset experts on it now.

“We’ve done the $1.4m Bond uni business degree.”