Topps Tile firm boss tracks down thief through eBay auction website

The manager of a top tile company backed a winner when he was hunting the thief taken items from the Ashford store.

The executive decided to check out eBay sales within a 10-mile radius of the Topps Tiles store in Hall Avenue.

And there he discovered items up for offer and being sold by someone with the name “Freddie12345Lee”...

It was then – Canterbury Crown Court was told – that he remembered an assistant working at the showroom called Lee Fisher who had a horse called Freddie!
Police raided Fisher’s home in Seaview Gardens, Warden Bay, Sheerness and discovered £2,000 in cash.

The 27-year-old, who has a previous conviction for stealing from an employee 10 years earlier, admitted stealing tiles and tile cutters worth £4,500.

The court heard how Fisher had been working at the Sittingbourne branch but had been transferred to Ashford when a colleague went sick.

It was then that the branch manager became concerned about missing stock and decided to turn detective and began searching the Internet-based online auction house and discovered 108 stolen items had been sold.

Fisher’s barrister Paul Green claimed he had been “bullied “ at work and forced into joining in with the thefts – claiming his role had been to sell theitems on Ebay.

But the court heard that Fisher had given a number of different accounts aboutthe breach of trust thefts.

He was given a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work.

Source: Kent Online
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentish_express/news/tile-boss-floors-thief-by-5754/