Tracey Catherine Pooley took hundreds of dollars of goods from her employer’s store

The IGA Westbrook worker had been employed at the store for some time, but CCTV revealed what she had been up to when no one was looking.

A long term employee who helped herself to groceries from the store she was employed by has been left with a $1000 bill.

Tracey Catherine Pooley had been working for the IGA Westbrook for some years, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

However, after the store changed hands, she was caught on CCTV taking foodstuffs which she did not pay for, police prosecutor Alister Windsor told the court.

In total, $286.70 in goods had been taken in what he described as an “unsophisticated” method, Sergeant Windsor said.

Tracey Catherine Pooley appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Monday, September 12, 2022.

Pooley, 50, pleaded guilty to one count of stealing as a servant.

Her solicitor Joe McConnell, of McConnell Saldumbide Lawyers, told the court his client had no previous criminal history at all and had written a letter of apology to the court.

The offending was out of character for her, he said.

Acting Magistrate Rowan Silva found Pooley’s offending to be “at the lower end of the scale”.

He fined her $750 and ordered she pay compensation of $286.70 and ordered the conviction not be recorded.