Ondine Savigny outside the Dunedin District Court yesterday. PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON A cleaner at the University of Otago stole gift vouchers during her shifts, a court has heard. Ondine Amanda Savigny, 61, admitted her year-long secret offending in the Dunedin District Court yesterday. The court heard that during her employment as a contracted cleaner, the defendant had unsupervised access to several university buildings, including staff offices. Between February last year and this year she used her access to take multiple gift vouchers from a shared mail box, staff offices and filing cabinets. The vouchers were intended to be given as incentives for participants in research projects. Instead, Savigny took them for herself and spent them at retail outlets. She admitted taking between 20 and 30 gift vouchers and $645 of spending could be traced back to her as the purchases were linked to her rewards card. The true amount taken was believed to be ‘‘significantly higher but remains unquantified’’, a police summary said. When spoken to by police, Savigny acknowledged she ‘‘had a problem’’ and said she was remorseful. The university said the institution had ‘‘zero tolerance’’ for fraud. ‘‘This case was a serious breach of trust by a contractor who had access to locked premises while carrying out their duties,’’ a spokesperson said. ‘‘As we would with any incident of this nature, we have reviewed the procedures in place to ensure appropriate levels of security.’’ Yesterday, counsel John Westgate said Savigny had lost her job since the offending and was struggling to gain new employment. ‘‘[It was] just a series of poor decisions, which she’s now dearly paid the price for,’’ the lawyer said. Judge Emma Smith agreed Savigny’s loss of employment was a significant consequence. She noted the defendant had one prior conviction for shoplifting from the 1990s. Judge Smith sentenced Savigny to 100 hours’ community work and ordered her to pay $645 reparation and court costs of $152. felicity.dear@odt.co.nz
