An accounts clerk who embezzled $77,000 from her employer was put on probation yesterday for a year. Chan Suk-wai, 23, succumbed to temptation by altering company cheques and pocketing $20,000, the District Court was told. She also kept deposits paid by customers and proceeds from the sale of products by the Waterproof Decoration Engineering Company at Tai Po totalling $57,000. The defendant admitted 15 charges of theft committed between August 1996 and February last year. Chan's parents tried to pay restitution to the company but her mother reported the matter to police after failing to agree with the engineering firm how much had been stolen. Defence lawyer James Lee Burney told Judge Wayne Wilson Chan was driven to crime because of behavioural problems.
