JK Rowling's ex-PA ordered to repay author £18k in fraud case

JK Rowling‘s former personal assistant has been ordered to repay £18,734 to the Harry Potter author after she was found to have fraudulently used her credit card to buy toiletries and foreign currency.

Amanda Donaldson spent more than £3,000 in Molton Brown, £2,139 in the Paper Tiger card shop and more than £1,619 in Starbucks and Costa coffee shops without authorisation, Airdrie Sheriff Court in Scotland heard.

She was also found to have fraudulently obtained £7,742 of foreign currency, more than £1,500 in cash and Harry Potter merchandise worth £3,213.

Rowling, sought damages against Donaldson, who worked as her personal assistant from February 2014 until her dismissal in April 2017, in a civil case brought under her married name Joanne Murray.

Sheriff Derek O’Carroll found Ms Donaldson had use of a business credit card in her name but knew and understood it was not to be used for her personal benefit.

He described the £3,629 expenditure on Molton Brown toiletries as “extraordinary”.

In evidence, the author said she did not ask Ms Donaldson to buy them.

It emerged during the hearing that Donaldson had used the business credit card to make unauthorised cash withdrawals for her own use on a number of occasions, amounting to a total of £1,160.

Unauthorised purchases for her own use in a large number of retail outlets amounted to a total of £9,832. She also used her employer’s bank accounts to purchase foreign currency worth the Sterling equivalent of £7,742.

At an earlier hearing, Ms Donaldson said her husband was allergic to strong perfumes so she would never buy them for home or office use.

Giving final submissions on the case in January, Allana Turley, representing Ms Donaldson, said her client never intended to deceive her employer and believed she was authorised to use the card in the way in which she did.

But Sheriff said he did not find Ms Donaldson to be either “credible or reliable”.

Totting up the amount, he found Ms Donaldson obtained £18,734 through fraud and ordered her to pay it back with interest.

However, he found there was not enough evidence to prove that Ms Donaldson was responsible for Harry Potter merchandise going missing.

The sheriff said he found Rowling gave her evidence in a “thoughtful, considered, measured, accurate, honest and reliable fashion” and that where there was in her mind any doubt in favour of the Ms Donaldson, she readily gave her the benefit of that doubt.

The author said the money he awarded would be donated to her charity Lumos, which helps children in orphanages and institutions around the world.

In a statement, she added that she “made it clear that the decision to take this matter to court was a last resort and not for her personal benefit but rather to protect the reputation of her existing staff and to make sure Ms Donaldson is not in a position to breach the trust of another employer”.

Additional reporting by Press Association