• Auckland office manager Crystal Nicole Marie Sinclair was sentenced to 11 months’ home detention for embezzling $465,000.
• Sinclair used her role to funnel money into personal accounts, spending it on online gambling.
• Judge Grant Fraser rejected permanent name suppression, citing the impact on the victim and community protection.

A couple who lost their successful horticultural business, future dream home and life savings after a trusted office manager stole more than $465,000 say they’ve been robbed again – by the justice system.

Malcolm and Trina Woolmore slammed the court system after 38-year-old Crystal Nicole Marie Sinclair, who they said they treated like family, had a potential 4.5-year prison sentence reduced to less than a year of home detention after she argued there was no one to look after her children.

This week in court the West Harbour single mum also used her three children – who she had not told about the $465,000 swindle – as the basis for an argument that she receive permanent name suppression.

That suppression application was rejected by Waitākere District Court Judge Grant Fraser. He read Malcolm Woolmore’s victim statement in court at length and ordered a sentence of 11 months of home detention.

“Crystal was a trusted and valued member of the team,” former Lyndale Custom Mix Ltd owner Malcolm Woolmore had told authorities, adding that he and his wife felt “totally betrayed” and wanted to see her serve time in prison.

“I have never before been taken advantage of the way Crystal had taken advantage of me,” he said.

Woolmore lost the business he had helped build from the ground up when he started there part-time as a 13-year-old.

“Her theft has changed my life,” he said.

Crystal Sinclair sits at her former desk at Lyndale Custom Mix, a Whenuapai-based horticulture company from which she stole $465,000.

Builders working on the Woolmores' dream home in Kerkeri were told to down tools as funds were no longer available.

The couple had to halt construction on their dream home in Kerikeri, pay a forensic accountant more than $120,000 to decipher the books and put $300,000 of their life savings into the business, once valued at $1.5 million, only to sell it for the debts owed.

The true financial cost of the stolen $465,000 was close to $1 million, they said.

Lost bet

Sinclair pleaded guilty in August to representative charges of theft by a person in a special relationship and accessing a computer for dishonest purposes, both of which carry sentences of up to seven years in prison.

Court documents outline how she funnelled cash from the Whenuapai-based horticulture business into roughly a dozen personal bank accounts over 14 months in 2022 and 2023, taking advantage of her office administration role helping with payroll and bill payments. She also padded her pay cheques and used the company credit card for multiple trips to Pak’nSave and an excursion to Rainbow’s End.

Trina and Malcolm Woolmore had to sell their horticulture business at a loss and stop building their dream retirement home after an employee embezzled $465,000.

Woolmore told the Herald it was when Sinclair was holidaying in Dubai with her then-partner that a supplier called the company’s office chasing a payment and her intricate deception started to unravel.

Woolmore recalled being confused as he called the supplier back. The system showed the bill had been paid.

It hadn’t.

“I couldn’t find any hard copies and I had been locked out of the business banking and files as the password had been changed,” Woolmore recalled.

A forensic accountant was called in to decipher the mess, costing the business owner a further $124,000.

“Crystal did such a good job hiding her theft in our computer system we couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake,” Woolmore explained. “All our reporting systems were destroyed as we couldn’t trust what was in our systems.”

He recalled having to go to suppliers and ask if bills had been paid.

Malcolm Woolmore (pictured) started working at Lyndale Nurseries as a 13-year-old and went on to buy the company.

“It was so unprofessional and embarrassing to be in such a position,” he said. “We had to trust what they told us to be true.”

According to the agreed summary of facts for the case, Sinclair’s illicit money transfers ranged from small amounts to about $5000 at a time. Most transfers were between $2000 and $3000.

“The defendant voluntarily presented herself to police and in explanation stated she spent the money on online gambling and thought she was going to win it back,” court documents state.

‘Slap in the face’

Judge Fraser said it would take “many, many lifetimes” for Sinclair to pay the money back at her current rate of reparation of $50 per week. Noting that she is now on a Jobseeker benefit, he ordered the payments to continue over the next five years in addition to a $10,000 lump sum that has been paid with money taken out of her KiwiSaver account.

The result would mean $20,150 of the missing $465,000 repaid. While not satisfactory, any other order would be unrealistic, he said.

Prosecutor Stewart King asked the judge to order $586,000 in reparations – a figure that also took into account the money spent on a forensic accountant. The long-term debt would serve as “a weekly reminder to the defendant about the harm that she has done”, he suggested.

Police had sought a starting point of between four-and-a-half and five years’ imprisonment for Sinclair.

King also opposed the defendant’s last-minute bid for permanent name suppression. Naming Sinclair would provide a layer of protection for the community, he said, as he asked the judge to consider the impact her offending had on the victim.

“He treated her as family and this is the response he gets to employing her, treating her well and trusting her,” King said. “It is a real slap in the face for him.”

Sinclair’s lawyer, Jennifer Holden, pointed out her client had no prior criminal record and was taking concrete steps, via counselling, to ensure she wouldn’t be before the court again.

“A prison sentence would not just do harm to Ms Sinclair but to her children,” Holden said.

Malcolm Woolmore said he had no choice but to sell Custom Mix. Photo / Google Maps

Judge Fraser ordered a starting point of four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment but then allowed 60% in combined discounts for her guilty pleas, gambling addiction, rehabilitation efforts and other matters.

Because the end result was a sentence of less than two years, the judge was given leeway to consider an alternative non-custodial sentence. He agreed that a custodial sentence would not be the best outcome for her children given their father lives overseas.

Sinclair has been receiving counselling from the Problem Gambling Foundation and said she now aspires to eventually get a job as a peer support worker for gambling addiction.

“Ms Sinclair is genuinely remorseful,” Holden said, acknowledging that there was “some scepticism” about that from the victims even after they met face-to-face for a restorative justice conference.

“Ms Sinclair did want to face Mr and Mrs Woolmore and extend her deepest apologies for what she has done.”

Family workplace ‘wrecked’

Woolmore told the Herald he had put more than $300,000 from his life savings into the business to keep it afloat after Sinclair’s thefts. He eventually realised the situation was untenable and sold the company to pay off its debts before the life savings could be recovered.

Just four years earlier, he had been offered $1.5 million from someone wanting to buy the business from him but now he was walking away from his life’s work nearly $1 million in the hole, he said.

“I could have liquidated the company which would have meant my team lost their jobs and all our suppliers would have been out of pocket, but I just couldn’t do that to them,” he said, explaining that he didn’t have theft insurance because he “never dreamed” it would be needed.

“It has wrecked the very close Custom Mix family,” he said.

Former Custom Mix owner Malcolm Woolmore says he had an "immense feeling of betrayal and loss" after finding out that employee Crystal Sinclair had embezzled so much money the business could not recover.

The theft also put on ice plans for Woolmore’s dream home in Kerikeri, where he planned to retire with his wife, Trina. No longer able to pay the builders, they halted construction.

The theft meant Woolmore’s life at 68 and Trina’s at 63 was “a lot different than what we had worked toward”.

“It was our dream and you ripped it from us,” Trina Woolmore recalled she told Sinclair in the restorative justice meeting.

‘Crime pays’

The outcome was not an unusual one.

Community detention was among the most common sentences last year for those convicted of stealing from their employers, according to an Open Justice analysis recently published in the Herald.

Of the 57 defendants sentenced last year for theft by a person in a special relationship, just eight cases resulted in imprisonment. Home detention was ordered for 15 defendants, 19 were ordered to serve community detention and all others were handed less rigorous sentences.

Such statistics would offer little comfort to the Woolmores, who feel the non-custodial outcome of their case means they’ve been robbed again – this time of justice.

Malcolm Woolmore pointed out defendants had been sent to jail before for similar scenarios and suggested Sinclair’s mother, who had looked after the children when she worked, and extended family could have taken over parenting duties while Sinclair served her time.

“To us the sentence sends a message that crime pays,” Woolmore said, explaining that the damage caused by his former employee has extended beyond the financial realm.

“I have bouts of depression and really struggle to get out of bed in the morning. My motivation is gone. And the world doesn’t seem the same any more,” he explained.

“I am now more cautious with my trust. I don’t take people at face value; it’s altered how I view humanity.”

He accepted Sinclair had a gambling habit but also suspected she was motivated by simple greed. He recalled the defendant telling colleagues after the Dubai holiday that she flew business class and had bought gold.

Trina Woolmore expressed similar frustration with the outcome.

“I only hope that Crystal actually realises the severity of the consequences of her theft,” she said. “It is hard to tell whether she is really remorseful for what she had done or sorry she got caught.

“It is hard to trust that someone is being truthful when they have lied to you so much.”

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

Kirsty Wynn is an Auckland-based journalist with more than 20 years experience in New Zealand newsrooms. She has covered everything from crime and social issues to the property market and consumer affairs.