Hotel manager thanks boss for holiday by stealing cash

Published on Saturday 5 July 2008 11:19

A HOTEL manager paid back his boss who treated him to a trip to New York to propose to his girlfriend by stealing from the company safe.

Ryan Simmons was caught taking the cash just a month after flying back from the holiday in the US he was given as a perk.

The 26-year-old pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday to stealing 850 from his employer.

Hotelier and restaurateur Peter Hood said he was "gutted" that the man he had taken under his wing for nearly four years had "stabbed me in the back".

Simmons was working as assistant manager at The Retreat, an eight-bedroom hotel in Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, owned by Mr Hood.

Mr Hood also took his employee on short breaks to St Andrews and Dublin.

Sheriff Fiona Reith QC deferred sentence on Simmons for six months and ordered him to pay back the money before then.

Asked outside court yesterday why he stole the cash, Simmons, of Timber Bush in Leith, said: "I'm glad this is all finished with."

Simmons was hired by Mr Hood in 2004 as a trainee manager at Clever Dicks, a pub he owned on the Royal Mile.

Mr Hood, 42, soon moved his new employee to manage another of his bars, Dirty Dicks in Rose Street, before he became second-in-charge at the hotel.

His duties included handling cash, making wedding bookings, drawing up rotas and taking reservations.

Mr Hood, of Corstorphine, said: "He was doing a good job and I was trying to bring him along and encourage him. I was grooming him to take over as manager at the hotel. I thought he was a good lad with a lot of potential.

"While we were in Dublin, he said he wanted to go to New York to propose to his girlfriend, Elaine. I said I would pay for it as a gift for them as another incentive for him to work hard.

"They stayed in the Roosevelt Hotel on Central Park for three days after flying over there. The trip cost me 850 and I gave them 200 spending money.

"It was only a month later that I discovered he was stealing from me. I had grown suspicious of some of the bank dealings. When I confronted him, he put his hands up and admitted it. He said he had money troubles.

"I feel gutted to have been taken in by him. I trusted him and this was how he repaid me."

Mr Hood has now sold Clever Dicks and Dirty Dicks, concentrating instead on the hotel in Cockpen Road, Bonnyrigg, and his bistro, Bad Ass, in Rose Street.

Speaking in court yesterday, depute fiscal Mairi Vernon said the theft had come to light on May 9 last year when Mr Hood asked his catering manager to check the safe and found cash missing.

Simmons' defence agent, John Good, said it was his client's first offence and he would have to live with a conviction for dishonesty.