Ex-bank manager prison term cut

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The bank manager behind Scotland's largest single fraud case has had his prison term cut on appeal.

Donald Mackenzie, 45, was jailed for 10 years after he admitted embezzling £21m from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

But his legal team argued the sentence was excessive and on Tuesday called for it to be reviewed.

Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh cut his jail term to six years and eight months after finding the initial punishment was "too high".

False accounts

Reaching their decision, judge Lord Philip, sitting with Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, said Mackenzie did not appear to have been motivated, at least initially, by personal gain.

Mackenzie was employed as a business manager at one of the bank's Edinburgh branches.

He accessed the money through the bank's loan system by setting up false accounts in the names of fictitious customers.

According to investigators, he spent an estimated five years covering his tracks by moving money around using "thousands" of transactions.

Before he was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh in June last year, the court heard that Mackenzie carried out the crimes due to a "misguided sense of service".

Defence counsel David Burns QC said his client, who has a wife and two children, created the accounts because of "substantial pressure to satisfy loan requirements at the bank".

It appears that your personal motivation was a desire to satisfy or please others Lord Philip

His actions had led to the collapse and early closure of at least three businesses, the court was told in June.

On that day, Lord Kinclaven imposed a 15-year jail term, which he cut to 10 years in view of Mackenzie's plea.

His early admission of guilt avoided a lengthy and expensive trial.

The Appeal Court judges on Tuesday condemned the "very serious crime of dishonesty", but ruled that the starting point of 15 years was excessive.

Lord Philip said: "The unusual feature of this case is that you do not appear to have been motivated, at least initially, by personal gain.

"It appears that your personal motivation was a desire to satisfy or please others."

He continued: "We have come to the view that a starting point of 15 years, chosen by the trial judge, was too high.

"Such a figure might only have been justified if the perpetrator of the crimes had derived substantial financial gain from them and had intended that to happen."

He said the gravity of the crime and society's disapproval of it would be marked sufficiently if a jail term of 10 years was taken as the starting point.

The sentence was cut to less than seven years once the discount for the guilty plea was applied.