Costa Coffee manager jailed for pocketing takings

31-year-old stole more than £17,000 

Report by BBC Isle of Man.

The manager of a coffee shop who pocketed more than £17,000 of the branch’s takings has been jailed for 16 months.

John Gelling stole the money from Costa Coffee in Ramsey while doing the banking.

Douglas Courthouse heard Gelling had used the blind spots in the store’s CCTV systems to steal the cash from daily takings.

He handed himself in to police after one of the shareholders began to investigate why the shop’s banking was not up to date and why there was cash in the safe.

The court heard Gelling, of North Shore Road, had worked for Fancy a Coffee Limited - which has the Isle of Man Costa franchise - as the Ramsey store manager since June 2022.

Between June 2023 and February 2024 the 31-year-old put money into his pocket while walking down the stairs in the store, after tallying up the day’s takings, because he knew the area was not covered by CCTV.

The court heard he would delay depositing a week’s takings into the bank until he had topped the cash up with money from the following week’s sales.

While it had started as smaller amounts it had escalated to an entire day’s takings at one point with the total amount stolen adding up to £17,470.

On 26 February he received a text message from one of the shareholders of the local company, asking why the banking had not been done, the court was told.

In his reply he said he would get it up to date when he was next in adding he had been “slacking on that, my fault”.

The shareholder went to the Ramsey branch the following day and found a large amount of cash in the safe sending Gelling, accompanied by another member of staff, to deposit it in the bank.

On 28 February he went to Ramsey Police Station and confessed to officers he had stolen money from his employers, later pleading guilty to theft.

In a victim impact statement read to the court company director Anne Dorling said she had been left “devastated” by the events and now found it difficult to trust people in relation to business.

She said she also now feared criminals would target the coffee shops because they thought a large amount of cash was kept on the property which it was not.

A refurbishment of the Ramsey branch had to be delayed and it would require £180,000 of sales in a year to recoup the stolen money she said.

The court also heard that while discussions were still ongoing with insurers the firm’s insurance policy had gone up 26 percent because of the theft - irrespective of any claim being successful - leading to a rise of £2,043 a year.

Gelling’s defence advocate said he had spent the stolen cash on feeding a gambling addiction and had been drinking heavily at the time to help him cope with personal issues.

Jailing Gelling, Deemster Graeme Cook said there was no good reason to suspend the sentence.

The deemster said he had a “public duty” to let others know that anyone who stole from their employers could expect a custodial sentence.