Ex-bank manager jailed after stealing from customers

Photo / File / Martin Sykes

A former Westpac bank manager has been sentenced to prison after stealing more than $350,000 from customers, including the elderly and family friends.

In Wellington District Court this afternoon, Helen Marie Kemp was handed a sentence of two years and one month after pleading guilty to nine charges, including accessing a computer for dishonest purposes, deception and forgery.

Kemp deceived six customers, from 2009 to 2013, while she worked for Westpac branches in Tawa and Johnsonville, Judge Barbara Morris told the court.

Over four years, Kemp organised loans, authorised overdrafts and approved credit cards using customers details, through which she stole a total of $358,000 from four elderly customers and two others who were family friends.

Some of this money was used to finance a new kitchen and car.

The customers had since been reimbursed by Westpac.

Crown lawyer Geraldine Kelly said Kemp's crimes were "calculated and premeditated".

She said Kemp chose her elderly victims, knowing they were vulnerable.

"She made an effort to become friends with them to gain personal details from them to do this. They considered her a close friend.

"They were vulnerable in the sense they had no reason not to trust the defendant, her position lead to them automatically trusting her."

Defence lawyer Douglas Ewen said Kemp was living a life of "self-contained misery".

He said her motive was not greed but a desperate act of chasing losses to repay the money she had already taken from her customers.

He said she was aware of her actions and was remorseful. Kemp had since cashed in her assets in an attempt to pay back Westpac, and taken part in restorative justice.

Judge Morris said Kemp used the money she took to inflate a comfortable lifestyle.

Judge Morris said her victims, particularly the two who were friends, felt a "painful sense of betrayal and loss".

"They could not believe you had done that to them."