A POLICE sergeant who stole more than $18,000 from an evidence safe at the Queanbeyan Police Station pleaded guilty to three counts of theft at Queanbeyan Local Court on Friday.
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Former Queanbeyan station manager Stuart Ross Young, 55, appeared in court in relation to the charges and will be sentenced on Friday, August 15.
Facts before the court detail how Young stole $18,300 in cash over the course of a twelve-month period between September 2011 and August 2012 by creating fake banking entries to show he’d deposited the cash into a police bank account. However, a subsequent audit revealed the cash was never banked, and Young, a resident of Isabella Plains in Canberra, was charged with stealing the funds in June last year.
Queanbeyan Police store all cash handed in by the public or seized through search warrants inside two separate safes, the court facts reveal. Young was one of only a very small number of officers at the station who had access to the station’s smaller ‘exhibit’ safe, where most of the money was stolen from.
Following an internal audit of the safes, investigating officers invited Young to take part in an electronically recorded interview on January 31 last year, which he declined for medical reasons. He faced court on theft charges for the first time last July.
NSW Police Media confirmed today that Young is no longer employed by the NSW Police Force.
