Police officer accused of stealing £12k wages overpayment has been cleared
A police officer accused of stealing a £12,000 wages overpayment from her force has been cleared.
PC Nicola Owen continued to receive full-time pay for a year, despite halving her hours of work at Northumbria Police, jurors heard.
Owen, of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, denied theft of £12,888 between September 1 2022 and October 1 2023 and has been tried by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court.
After less than an hour deliberation jurors delivered a not guilty verdict.
Giving evidence from the witness box, Owen said she has paid the money back and when asked by her barrister Mairi Clancy if she had intended to keep the overpayment, she said: "No, never, that would be dishonest."
Owen told the court she had raised the overpayment issue during a meeting in September 2023.
She told the court: "All I wanted from the conversation in September 2023 and from the police as an organisation as a employer, was a conversation to say 'this is the money that's outstanding, these are the bank details where you need to pay it back and this is who you need to speak to to get it paid back and a receipt', this is all I wanted from the conversation and that was my intention."
Owen said Northumbria Police "hadn't shown any kind of urgency" to tell her how to pay the money back and added: "I am not dishonest, I am not a thief, I wanted to pay this money back."
During interview Owen had denied acting dishonestly.