{"id":816744,"date":"2026-07-22T14:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816744\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:53:16","slug":"newcastle-accountant-jailed-for-878000-iga-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816744\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle accountant jailed for $878,000 IGA fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

An accountant for a network of\u00a0IGA supermarkets in New South Wales has been jailed for defrauding $878,000.<\/p>\n

Narelle Labuts, 61, worked\u00a0with the Singh Group,\u00a0which owns 10 IGA stores in the Hunter Valley.<\/p>\n

She was sacked in 2021 after a bank flagged an unusual transaction.<\/p>\n

Labuts stole the company’s money by using white font on 522 transactions to hide her misconduct over a four-year period, the Newcastle District Court heard.<\/p>\n

In October 2024, police\u00a0charged her\u00a0with obtaining financial advantage by deception and making a false document to obtain a financial advantage.<\/p>\n

Labuts pleaded guilty at the end of last year.<\/p>\n

Today she was sentenced to three and a half years in prison with a two-year non-parole period.<\/p>\n

Judge Tim Gartelmann SC said what began as an opportunistic crime spiralled into something “that required significant planning and organising”.<\/p>\n

“The sentences for fraud offences must deter others to commit them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They are easy to commit and hard to detect.”\"A<\/p>\n

Narelle Labuts was sacked after an irregular transaction was flagged. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

The court heard Labuts had only returned a fraction of the stolen money, repaying $3,500 while the IGA network clawed back a further $9,000 by refusing to pay her entitlements.<\/p>\n

Gambling helplines:<\/p>\n

At the sentencing hearing Labuts said she was addicted to gambling and that 90 per cent of the embezzled funds had gone into poker machines.<\/p>\n

When the Crown asked her what happened to the remaining $80,000 that had not been gambled, she said “to be honest, I couldn’t tell you”.<\/p>\n

Labuts said she knew that what she was doing was wrong thing but was “praying for a big win to return it all back”.<\/p>\n

“The house always wins, so it never eventuated,” she said tearfully.<\/p>\n

Labuts said she was “so incredibly sorry” and acknowledged she had “destroyed the trust [her employer] put in me”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Narelle Labuts said she gambled most of the money. (ABC Newcastle: Alex Turner-Cohen)<\/p>\n

The court heard she has since worked as a bookkeeper at a transport and a concreting company, but did not disclose why her employment at the IGA network came to an abrupt end.<\/p>\n

She said she would “probably” tell future employers about the conviction because it was now common knowledge.<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Stephen Hopper emphasised\u00a0that Labuts was addressing her gambling addiction and had been getting counselling since June 2022.<\/p>\n

Labuts disagreed with a suggestion from the Crown that she only sought help for her gambling problem because she had been caught.<\/p>\n

She will be eligible for parole in July 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An accountant for a network of\u00a0IGA supermarkets in New South Wales has been jailed for defrauding $878,000. Narelle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,391802,391803,391799,391798,391800,311156,44,18291,391801,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-816744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-hunter-valley-iga","tag-hunter-valley-iga-fraud","tag-iga-accountant-fraud","tag-iga-accountant-jailed","tag-narelle-labuts","tag-newcastle-district-court","tag-news","tag-problem-gambling","tag-singh-group","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}